came into action at once
and speedily silenced the German guns for the time being.

Bols, who was leading, reported that the hill was attackable--it was
really only a rise in the ground,--and after a reconnaissance I gladly
issued orders. So the Norfolks and Dorsets proceeded to attack in
proper form, whilst I sent the Bedfords round to the right towards
Bezu to try and take the rise in flank. The 14th Brigade were
meanwhile somewhere on the left, and we got touch with them after a
time; but they could not get forward, as a number of big guns from
much further off kept up a heavy fire, and there was a body of
infantry hidden somewhere as well, to judge from the number of bullets
that came over and into us.

That was rather a trying afternoon. Dorsets and Norfolks were held up
about half a mile from Hill 189, and I went forward to Bezu with the
Bedfords to try to get them on to the flank. Thorpe and his company
got forward into a wood, but lost a number of men in getting there;
and the lie of the ground did not seem to justify my sending many more
to help him, as the space up to the wood was swept by a heavy fire.
Just about this time poor Roe of the Dorsets, who had taken some of
his company into this wood, was shot through the head--as was also
George, one of his subalterns.

Meanwhile those horrible big guns from somewhere near Sablonnieres
were giving us a lot of trouble, and knocked out also several of the
Cheshires, who had been sent by the Divisional Commander towards the
left to support the 14th Brigade. The latter--(I went to see Rolt, the
Brigadier, but there was little we could combine)--seemed at one
moment to be a little unhappy, as they were enfiladed from Chanoust on
their left; but the Dorsets had worked carefully forward on their
tummies, and with the Norfolks held a low ridge well to the front,
whence, though they could not get forward themselves, they could do
the enemy a good deal of damage. So the 14th Brigade stuck it out, and
we kept up the game till dusk, when we dug ourselves in a little
further back and posted outposts.

I might add that when Weatherby and I went forward to see Bols and
Ballard, Weatherby had bad luck, for his horse was shot in the body
whilst he was leading him, and died that night.

Meanwhile the 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division was on our right, under
Shaw, and although his Lincolns, or some of them, had got into the
wood, and we tried a combined movement, they also got