down in that last crossing of No Man’s Land. And what of D Company? Its fate was much the same as A Company’s. Harassed by machine guns from the Schwaben Redoubt, and by rifle fire from snipers to the east, it beat off several counter-attacks. S.A.A. and bombs ran out, and the men searched the dead to replenish their supplies. Rapidly their numbers dwindled. Severely wounded and in great pain, Lieut. J. T. Riley fought fiercely until he was at length killed. C.S.M. J. C. Walker, who had carried on though wounded early in the action, was also killed. Yet, practically leaderless, the men still fought on, until an officer of the 5th Battalion, who had become mixed up with D Company, ordered a withdrawal. Then the remnants of the company--they did not muster twenty, all told--withdrew to the parallels. Everything that had been gained was lost. Not a Britisher remained in the enemy lines, save the few men who had been captured. The number of these was very small. On the authority of the Germans themselves, only seven unwounded prisoners from the 4th and 5th Battalions were taken that day. Many men were still lying out in shell holes, and, during the rest of the day and night that followed, some of these crawled back into the lines. But there were far more lying out there who would never crawl again. Throughout the action Battalion H.Q. was located in a deep dugout, near the junction of Inniskilling Avenue with Whitchurch Street; C Company was in Battalion reserve, either in or near the old British front line. All arrangements had been made for sending up stores soon after the objectives were taken. East Koyli Sap was to be improved, and used as a communication trench for that purpose. But this was never done. Early in the action it became so crowded with casualties and others that parties could not move along it. Even if they had been able to do so, it entered the enemy front line at the Pope’s Nose, which was never occupied by the British on September 3rd. Lack of reliable information was the most serious difficulty with which Battalion H.Q. had to contend dining the battle, and the 5th Battalion was even worse off in that respect. Signallers had gone forward with the assaulting companies, but no message ever came back from them. Cpl. C. Landale, D.C.M. made gallant attempts to run a telephone line across No Man’s Land, but it could not be maintained on account of the enemy barrage. Most of the runners who left with messages were killed. No information was ever received from the observation post. The result was that, during the whole operation, Battalion H.Q. was almost completely ignorant of what was happening.