t a mile to the north of where we were. A Company
(Captain A.E.F. Fawcus) and D Company (Captain H. Smedley) were ordered
to comply. The men were resting for the work planned for the next day.
They got ready hurriedly, and moved in fast-gathering darkness along a
labyrinth of unfamiliar trenches to a position from which the Worcesters
had advanced in the afternoon.

Our information was most vague. The Worcesters had gone "over the top"
many hours earlier and had disappeared. They were believed to be holding
trenches somewhere beyond, but they were out of touch with our line, and
it was intended to reinforce them. The night was dark, and the direction
to be taken after leaving our trenches could only be roughly indicated.
A Company lined up first, and went over the top like one man. D Company,
which was to move to the right of A, then lined up along the fire step
and followed.

Our men passed into a tornado of fire, and drifted forward on a broken
moor, already littered with dead and wounded. Both Companies eventually
lined up in shallow depressions of ground, but there was no trench to
receive them.

Meanwhile, many of our wounded had straggled back to the trench from
which they started, and numbers of wounded Regulars of the 29th
Division who had lain out for many hours were brought in by our men
during the long night. This was the one bright touch in its story. We
laid down these brave men on the narrow fire-step, and our
stretcher-bearers worked nobly. Several men went out with stretchers
under heavy fire, and fetched in as many survivors as they could find.
One, I remember, was called Corris. At midnight the Colonel and Captain
P.H. Creagh, our Adjutant, left for Headquarters, where the morrow's
plan of operations was being partially recast. The hours passed. At last
two messengers clambered back with reports from Fawcus and Smedley.
Lance-Corporal H.L. MacCartney brought the former's.

The only sensible course was for our parties to come in. I noticed that
MacCartney's hand was broken and bleeding, and suggested to him that
someone else should go back with my message of recall. He insisted on
his ability to go, and with a companion he climbed over the parapet. A
few moments later he was shot through the heart. Smedley's messenger was
Lance-Corporal G.W.F. Franklin, whose services on the field won him a
commission, and who played a splendid part in the subsequent annals of
the Battalion. He was given a like mess