wire
entanglement in a dangerous place, it was as black as pitch. He made
his sections hold on to each other's coats, but within ten minutes
they had not only lost each other in the dense black woods--chiefly
through tumbling into trenches and falling over telephone wires,--but
Singer had lost the whole company, and after wandering helplessly in
what he thought the right direction for some time, he discovered that
he had lost himself as well. He said he felt inclined to sit down and
have a good cry, so utterly miserable did he feel!

In falling back to the second line we had a fairly easy job, but for
the 9th Brigade it was a regular Chinese puzzle, for by this time some
of their trenches were in German hands at one end and English at the
other, whilst Northumberland Fusiliers, Lincolns, Sussex, West
Ridings, Cavalry, and even part of the 2nd Grenadiers,[21] who had
turned up from goodness knows where, were inextricably tangled up; not
to mention that a party of Northumberlands, numbering about 120, under
one gallant subaltern called Brown, had been holding out for three
days in front of our line, with no food or drink, and Germans in
trenches only 30 yards off them. I believe this lot eventually got
away in safety, but the retirement of all was about as difficult as
it could be. This was on the 13th.

[Footnote 21: My old battalion.]

On the 14th the Bedfords were heavily attacked, and the Germans pushed
a machine-gun right forward through the wood and enfiladed the
Cheshire left. These stood it for some time and then retired further
down their trench, being unable to let the Bedfords know. Consequently
this beastly gun got in a heavy fire on the Bedfords right as well and
forced them to retire. The reduit was no good--the wood was too
thick--and some of the garrison were captured. So the Bedfords had to
fall back, fighting, on to their third line 50 yards back, where they
held the enemy.

Edwards, who commanded the advanced Bedford company, came up to the
chateau to report, and gave a most cheery and amusing account of the
whole thing, but the result was not at all amusing, as we had lost
ground and a lot of men.

Meanwhile the big attack by the German Guards was being made on the
brigades on our flanks, but, as all the world knows, it was completely
repulsed, though the 15th Brigade was not very heavily engaged as a
whole. The fighting was terribly confused in the woods, and nothing
but the individual