When the colonel came back he held a consultation with his company commanders who were Major Tupper "A" Co., Lieut. Col. Flowers, "B" Co., Capt. Stairs, "C" Co., Major Brooks "D" Co., and the entire scheme was explained to them. I was in the Lewis Gun Corps of "C" Co., so when Captain Stairs called together his platoon officers, I had to be there too, and the scheme was that "A" and "D" companies were to form the first wave. There was a railroad the other side of Courcelette, there they were to dig in, in the most suitable place in front of that. "C" and "B" formed the second wave and were to dig in, just in front of the village. My instructions as to my guns were that I was to plant one gun on the left flank of the company and one on the right. When I saw that D. Co., had consolidated their position I was to start and take the right flank gun up and put it out in a shell hole about 20 yards in front of D. Co. My left flank gun I was to leave as it was guarding a sunken road. It was also an understood thing that we were to leave so many Lewis gunners behind, so when we started over we had but two trained men per gun, and four others, untrained, to carry ammunition. We started to get into position. The glorious 22nd were on our right, and the 3rd Division on our left, and tho this was our first time "over" everybody was laughing and eager to get at it. There was that grand old colonel of ours with a foot rule held in one hand and a map in the other. We were all lined up in extended order about 1-1/2 miles from our objective and we had to advance over ground that had been ploughed up pretty badly by our own artillery that morning. Shortly, our colonel gave the order to advance. Almost at the same time our artillery opened up. We advanced in one long extended line. (I must say that we use a different formation today). We were all joking with one another. We had fixed bayonets and as we passed a trench I heard one artillery observing officer say: "By the Gods of War, isn't it fine." One of my gunners asked me for a chew of tobacco. We passed some of the trenches which our boys had taken that morning. I saw a big German lying on his face dead, and a few of our own lying around. Then again we came across a few more dead Huns. Here were a couple of skulls which had been thrown up by our artillery. One of our boys passed the remark that they would not even let the dead rest. People talk about Fear; I must admit there is such a thing before you start over, but once you get started you are callous to everything. You see you own best friend killed alongside of you, but that does not stop you for you keep right on, never thinking that you may be the next, and even if you did you would say to yourself that you have got to go sooner or later, so what's the odds?