inquished that post, to take up duty as
Brigadier-General of the 14th Infantry Brigade--which this very
distinguished officer commanded until he was killed--and Captain
Morton assumed command of the Battalion, with Captain Paterson, M.C.,
as second in command.

While at Holnon on the 13th, "C" and "D" Companies were sent forward
in support of the 2nd K.O.Y.L.I., who were attacking Fayet. This
attack was carried out in conjunction with one being made by the
French, who were endeavouring to take St. Quentin. "B" Company joined
the others in the front line, and later the Battalion took over a
sector of the front line. After consolidating here, congratulatory
messages were received from Brigadier-General Blacklock, General Shute
and General Rawlinson.

The road from Nesle to St. Quentin is a long and cruel one, but in
these early days of 1917, it was to the 17th H.L.I. the pathway to
glory. They were sweeping onwards in the track of the retreating
enemy, with the glow of victory to strengthen their hearts and the
blessings of a delivered people in their ears. The echoing trumpets of
romance called to them from the Cathedral City, and their blood
stirred to the call. These were the impressions that led them, in
common with the rest of the Division, to surmount appalling obstacles,
natural and devilish. They soaked in the snow, and froze in the keen
blast; they starved and toiled on the way, but "stuck it," and their
reward was the fall of Savy village. There was fighting all along the
50 mile front just then, and Savy did not loom very large in the
chronicles of the time, but those who took part in its capture, and in
the taking of the wood a mile beyond, knew that they had achieved the
heroic. There was no resting; Francilly and Holnon were the next to
fall, and the men were within sight of the spires of St. Quentin. They
lived for some days in earth holes, and the weather flayed them
unmercifully. Then one dark morning, the 13th of April, they assembled
silently and lay down in the field, whilst dawn broke with singing of
birds, and the shriek and whistle of the barrage. The Division was
attacking Fayet, the enemy's last stronghold beyond the city. Before
they went over, grey and green coated figures were being brought down.
There were many other grey and green figures grotesquely contorted in
the brown ribbed fields, and those of them who had escaped from the
inferno fought it out intermittently, in the woods beyond the