sometimes direct communication is possible, and
at others the wire is "dished," but, on the whole, a good deal of
information is passed through. The relay posts are constantly shelled,
and the bombardier in charge is wounded, while one runner was killed
in his gallant endeavour to pass through a heavy barrage with an
important communication. In the evening the party, much exhausted with
the strenuous and never ending work of the day, is relieved by a fresh
group of officers and signallers, who take over from them, and the
little party wind their way homewards profoundly thankful to find
themselves back with their unit safe and sound.

The situation, at the end of the opening day of the battle, was
roughly this:--In the north all had gone well, and most of the
objectives aimed at were successfully taken, but, such stiff
resistance was met with further south, that the assaulting troops were
held up after they had gained only about half of those allotted to
them, and, although they fought stubbornly and determinedly, they were
unable to make further ground. Thus the left wing was forced to mark
time while the troops on the right made a series of attacks in order
to straighten out the line, otherwise the army to the north would have
found itself enclosed in a nasty salient. The artillery, over the
whole battle front, also encountered great difficulty in advancing the
guns, the ground was so ploughed up by the effects of the long
preliminary bombardment. Even the horse gunners, who were detailed to
move up in immediate support of the infantry, were unable to proceed
further than a few hundred yards on the other side of the canal. Huge
craters, placed lip to lip, met them in all directions, and an advance
was found to be out of the question till new tracks were prepared and
the road cleared of debris. This naturally took some time to
accomplish, and, meanwhile, all the field batteries were advanced as
close to the canal bank as possible, but even then they were much too
far behind, and were firing at almost extreme range.

No serious attack could be delivered, therefore, for some ten (p. 056)
days, until sufficient time had elapsed to enable the gunners to
occupy new positions some way across the canal, and, on this occasion,
Langemarke fell into our hands, as well as the line of the Broombeke.
Progress remained slow further south, consequently our front became
stationary. Now, it so happened that most of our batteries