62............... CANADA IN FLANDERS.
advanced on and reoccupied the trenches which they
had momentarily abandoned.
In the course of the same night, the 3rd Brigade,
which had already displayed a resource, a gallantry,
and a tenacity for which no eulogy could he exces-
sive, was exposed (and with it the whole Allied
cause) to a peril still more formidable. It has been
explained, and, indeed, the fundamental situation
made the peril clear, that several German divisions
were attempting to crush or drive back this devoted
Brigade, and in any event to use their enormous
numerical superiority to sweep around and over-
whelm its left wing. At some point in the line which
cannot be precisely determined, the last attempt
partially succeeded, and, in the course of this critical
struggle, German troops in considerable, though not
in overwhelming numbers, swung past the unsup-
ported left of the Brigade, and, slipping in between
the wood and St. Julien, added to the torturing
anxieties of the long-drawn struggle by the appear-
ance, and indeed for the moment the reality, of isola-
tion from the Brigade base.
In the exertions made by the 3rd Brigade during
this supreme crisis it is almost impossible to single
out one battalion without injustice to others, but
though the efforts of the Royal Highlanders of
Montreal, 13th Battalion, were only equal to those
of the other battalions who did such heroic service,
it so happened, by chance, that the fate of some of
its officers attracted special attention.
Major Norsworthy was in the reserve trenches,
half a mile in the rear of the firing line, when he
was killed in his attempt to reach Major McCuaig
with reinforcements; and Captain Guy Drummond
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