d
on the map.)

Inchy was now the centre of an appalling bombardment. A crowd of
Germans had got into it, it appeared, and the village was being
heavily shelled by both sides--British and German. Several houses and
haystacks caught fire, and the poor devils inside must have had a
terrible time. The 3rd Division was holding its own, but was being
heavily attacked by the enemy's infantry. However, we eventually got
the better of it, and the 9th and 10th Brigades drove the Germans away
from their trenches and pursued them some distance, much assisted by
the fire of the Dorsets and the advance of one or two of their
companies.

Things went on hammer-and-tongs for another hour or two; more and more
wounded began coming in from the 13th Brigade, including a lot of
K.O.S.B.'s. We turned Beilby, our veterinary officer, on to "first
aid" for many of them and sent them on; but some of the shrapnel
wounds were appalling. One man I remember lying across a pony; I
literally took him for a Frenchman, for his trousers were drenched red
with blood, and not a patch of khaki showing. Another man had the
whole of the back of his thigh torn away; yet, after being bandaged,
he hobbled gaily off, smoking a pipe. What struck me as curious was
the large number of men hit in the face or below the knee,--there
seemed few body wounds in comparison; but that may of course have been
because those badly hit in the body were killed or unmovable. But one
would see men apparently at their last gasp, with gruesome wounds on
them and no more stretchers available, and yet five minutes afterwards
they had disappeared.

Time was getting on, and the thunder and rain of German shells seemed
unceasing; they appeared to come now not only from all along the front
and the right front, but from our right as well, and our guns were
replying less and less. Reports began to come in from the right of
batteries wiped out (the 28th R.F.A. Brigade lost nearly all their
guns here, for nearly all the detachments and horses were killed), and
of a crushing attack on the 19th Brigade and penetration of our line
thereabouts. And soon afterwards the movement itself became visible,
for the 14th Brigade, and then the 13th, began to give way, and one
could see the trenches being evacuated on the right. The Norfolks
stuck well to it on the right, and covered the retirement that was
beginning; but they were taken out of my hands by Sir C. F., and told
off to act as rear-guard f