him. For nearly
two years he contrived to serve voluntarily with the Division, nobody
quite knows in what capacity or by what authority, and during that
time he endeared himself to all by his unfailing good nature and
cheeriness, his whole-hearted enthusiasm and his lack of fear.

It may here be mentioned that during its last "rest" the Division
carried out very hard training over dummy trenches for an attack on
the Pilkem Ridge, in conjunction with the Guards. This attack was
abandoned when the Division moved to the Somme, but it formed the
basis of the very successful attack delivered by the Guards and Welsh
Divisions in July 1917.

CHAPTER VI

THE SOMME

1916

At the end of July the Division was at last relieved from the Salient,
where it had suffered nearly 11,000 casualties during its thirteen
months' sojourn, and went south by train to join the Fifth Army.

The greater part of August was spent on the Ancre, on the front
opposite Beaumont-Hamel, making preparations for an attack which was
eventually abandoned for a time.

After a short period in reserve the Division was moved, between 6th
and 8th September, to join the XIV Corps, Fourth Army (Lt.-Gen. Lord
Cavan), to which corps it had for some time belonged up north. The XIV
Corps was the right corps of the British attack, and had its right on
the north bank of the Somme. In a succession of hard-fought battles
the Fourth Army (Gen. Sir H. S. Rawlinson) had pushed the Germans back
a considerable distance; units were feeling the strain badly, and
fresh troops were needed.

On 9th September a successful attack had given us Ginchy and Leuze
Wood, but the Germans were holding very strongly the high ground which
lies in the form of a horseshoe between the above-named points, and
which dominates the country for some distance to the south. The
trenches followed the shape of the spur roughly at the back end of the
horseshoe, and covered access was given to them by a sunken road
leading back to the deep valley which runs north from Combles.

At the top of the spur, just south of the railway and communicating
with the sunken road, was a four-sided trench in the form of a
parallelogram of some 300 yards by 150 yards, called by us the
Quadrilateral.

It was this strong point and the adjoining trenches which had held up
the advance of the Fourth Army on the 9th September, and it was the
first task of the 6th Division to obliterate the horseshoe and
straig