The attack in the centre made good headway. Though checked by a flanking fire, the 20th Brigade pushed on, and when reinforced reached the outskirts of the hamlet marked C, where it broke into the second line trenches. Late on Sunday evening the 1st Grenadiers were brought up, and their bombing attacks were successful in driving many Germans from their lairs. One company of the 2nd Scots Guards on this part of the line advanced too far ahead, and was cut off. Like the Canadians at St. Julien, the trapped Guards fought to the last man. When we took the ground a few days later the gallant fellows were found lying stiff and cold, with the enemy's dead thick around them. The movement from Festubert was still more successful. The trenches against which the attack was launched formed a perfect maze; yet an advance of more than a mile was made. The 1st Welsh Fusiliers swarmed over the German parapets with real Celtic ardour, and drove the enemy down a long communication trench into an orchard. Company Sergeant-Major Barter of this regiment called for volunteers, and he and his eight devoted companions did miracles of heroism in the German second line. They cleared five hundred yards of trench, discovered and cut the leads of eleven mines, and captured three officers and 102 men. Sergeant-Major Barter afterwards received the Victoria Cross. Next day rain fell heavily, but the struggle in the trenches still continued. On this day a terrible scene was witnessed at a point between A and C. The remnant of a battalion of Saxons proposed to surrender. As they advanced towards our line they waved a white flag tied to a stick. At once their comrades opened rifle fire on them, and the guns behind dropped shells among them. In a few moments the Saxons were destroyed almost to a man. In the evening the 21st Brigade on the right made another advance, in the course of which a Territorial battalion, the 4th Cameron Highlanders, recruited mainly from Inverness-shire, Skye, and the misty Hebrides, pushed on far before their comrades. Under heavy fire, they advanced over country liberally seamed with ditches, one of which was so deep and wide that most of the men had to swim across it. The third company reached the back end of a German communication trench; but being without bombs, and having almost wholly used up its cartridges, was soon in desperate straits. About midnight these gallant fellows were reinforced by two platoons; but as they had no machine guns, and as the Germans were fast closing in on both sides of them, and they were "in the air," they were ordered to retire. In the small hours of the morning they made their way back through a heavy rain of shells, and by the time that the weary, mud-stained battalion had regained the British position it had been reduced to half its strength. [Illustration: Playing their Comrades up to the Germans: the Pipers of the Black Watch at Richebourg. (_By permission of The Illustrated London News._)