During the general advance in May the Black Watch suffered very heavily. They assaulted the German trenches a few miles east of Richebourg (point A on the map, page 231). Their first charge in the morning only reached the German wire, and they fell in swathes under the merciless machine-gun fire of the enemy. During the afternoon other companies of the Black Watch dashed up, and by a brilliant charge captured the trenches which had defied them in the morning. It was during this charge that the pipers showed wonderful courage. The two pipers of each company played their comrades right up to the Germans. The skirl of their pipes was heard above the din and crash of Maxims, rifles, and bursting shrapnel. The lads of "brown heath and shaggy wood" rushed on to victory with the pibroch of their sires ringing in their ears.] Still the fight went on. The Canadians, who had recovered from their terrible ordeal on the Ypres salient, were now sent up to relieve the two brigades of the 7th Division. On the afternoon of 18th May two companies of the 16th (Canadian Scottish) were ordered to advance on the hamlet at C, to the north-west of the orchard already mentioned. One company made a frontal attack, and the other proceeded along the communication trench which had been won by the Welsh Fusiliers. The advance was partly successful, and the companies dug in five hundred yards in front of the starting point. On the night of the 20th an attack was made on the orchard itself. During the afternoon the little enclosure was heavily bombarded, and at 7.45, when the artillery fire ceased, the Canadians climbed over their parapets and dashed forward. The advance was made in broad daylight, and a torrent of fire beat down upon them. At the edge of the orchard they discovered a deep ditch full of water, with a wired hedge on the other side. Without pause, the men plunged into the water, and, scrambling up the bank, pushed through gaps in the hedges and swarmed into the orchard. On the far side there were many Germans, but they fled as the Canadians charged. Before long the orchard was in British hands. Early on the 20th the 10th Canadian battalion made a gallant but unavailing attempt to seize a very strong German position known as Bexhill. The approach to it was defended by a redoubt strongly held with machine guns. On the evening of the next day the Canadians returned to the attack, but it was not until the early morning of the 24th that the redoubt was captured. Five hundred men of the 5th Brigade, along with 100 men of the 7th (British Columbia) Battalion, made an advance in the bright moonlight across a ditch which had been previously bridged, and by four in the morning were in possession of the stronghold. Two hours later Bexhill itself was won, and the victors received orders to "dig in and hang on." They did so, in spite of three very fierce counter-attacks.