result the weather failed him badly, and his losses were heavy, and yet the verdict of posterity may say that he was right. Looking back with the wisdom that comes after the event, one can clearly see that had the whole operation stopped when the rains fell after the first day, it would have been the wisest course, but when once such a movement is well under way it is difficult to compromise. Since the line had already been established upon high ground to the south, it was evidently in the north that the new effort must be made, as the front of advance was contracted to six miles from the extreme left wing, where the French were still posted, to a {214} point east of Zonnebeke. The wind was high, the rain intermittent, and the night cloudy and dark; but in spite of all these hindrances the storming troops were by some miracle of disciplined organisation ready in their assembly trenches, and the advance went forward at 5.20 on the morning of October 9. Upon the left an extremely successful advance was carried out by the French and by the Guards. Of our gallant Allies it need only be said that on this day as on all others they carried out to the full what was given them to do, and established their advanced posts a mile or so to the eastward on the skirts of Houthulst Forest, taking St. Janshoek and pushing on, up to their waists sometimes in water, to the swamps of Corverbeck. Cavan's Corps consisted of the Guards upon the left, the Twenty-ninth in the centre, and the Fourth Division upon the right. The advance of the Guards was as usual a magnificent one, and the 1st Brigade upon the right, the 2nd on the left, pushed forward the line on their sector for more than a mile, beginning by the difficult fording of the deep flooded Brombeek and then taking in their stride a number of farmhouses and strong points, as well as the villages of Koekuit and Veldhoek--the second hamlet of that name which had the ill-fortune to figure upon the war-map. Four hundred prisoners were left in their hands, mostly of the 417th Regiment, who had only taken over the line at four that morning. The 2nd Brigade of Guards worked all day in close touch with the French, amid the dangerous swamps in the north, while the 1st Brigade kept their alignment with the 4th Worcesters, who formed the left unit of the 88th Brigade upon their right. Even under the awful {215} conditions of ground and weather the work of the Guards was as clean and precise as ever.