fairly heavy equipment. In the late afternoon when we were all lined
up prepared to march off, orders came to cancel all orders. We stood
by for two days. On 'X' night the 16th H.L.I. sent a platoon over to
find out the condition of the enemy defences. Owing to an accident
they were almost entirely wiped out. On the following morning while
playing a football match the Sixteenth again suffered casualties from
a 5.9 which burst between the goal posts. In the evening of 'Z' day,
the 30th of June, we marched off by platoons. The thunder of the heavy
guns as we passed through their belt was almost unbearable, and nearer
the lines long lines of eighteen-pounders were giving 'battery fire'
down long rows of twenty batteries, sometimes all speaking at once. We
entered 'Oban Avenue' at the right end of the village of Authuille. It
was the 'up' trench for the advance and 'Campbell Avenue' the 'down.'
Both trenches had been deepened, in some places, to twelve feet, and
were fairly safe from shrapnel. The line in which we were to spend the
night had been blown almost completely out of existence and it was
difficult to find sufficient cover for the men. I and the bomber
who was next to me in the line found a corner and there slept for the
night. We were once disturbed by the enemy destroying a trench mortar
store situated close to where we slept. Daybreak came and still there
was no word of 'zero.' We made some breakfast, and about half-past
five word was passed along that zero was 7.30, and to move into battle
positions. We moved to the right until we were in contact with the
next Company. At 6.25 a.m. the final bombardment commenced. Every gun
was firing 'gunfire' and the rush of metal overhead was extraordinary.
The reply was feeble. At 7.25 we left the trench and walked over to
within 60 yards of the barrage. At 7.30 the barrage lifted and we
rushed the front line defences, destroying the garrison, in and out of
dug-outs. I have few definite memories from the time we first saw the
Germans to the time the machine gun swept us down outside the Liepzig
Redoubt. It became evident that we, who were working up between two
communication trenches, after two or three rushes, that further
advancing was impossible without support. We waited for our own
reserve waves and the Lonsdales who should have come on behind. But no
reserves reached us and we saw our only hope lay in the fact that they
had rushed one of the communication trenches and