At the moment of the final attack, the 7th C.B. (Household Cavalry) had already been in these trenches for three days and nights, under a ceaseless shell-fire from south and east, and occasionally even from west. In the case of the machine-gun section of the Blues, under Lord Worsley, that period was doubled, the detachment having been in the advance trenches for six days and nights unrelieved. There is reason to believe that the supreme attack on Zandvoorde had originally been planned for the 29th, so as to take place simultaneously with that on Kruiseik, but a delay in the arrival of the XV. German Army Corps resulted in its postponement till the following day. The expected reinforcements arrived during the night of the 29th and--all being now according to arrangement--the attack took place at daybreak on the following morning. The attack took the form of a storm of shrapnel and high-explosives of so terrific a nature that by nine o'clock the Household Cavalry trenches had been literally blown to pieces, and the brigade was forced to retire slowly down the hill, keeping up a covering fire as it went. The retirement was effected in good order, but Lord Hugh Grosvenor's squadron of the 1st Life Guards, "C" Squadron of the 2nd Life Guards, and Lord Worsley's machine-gun section of the Blues did not succeed in withdrawing with the rest of the brigade, and their fate is still a matter of uncertainty. It is probable, however, that, in the pandemonium which was reigning, the order to retire did not reach them, and that those who survived the bombardment awaited the infantry attack which followed, and fought it out to an absolute finish. An officer in the R. Welsh Fusiliers' trenches, on the left of the Zandvoorde trenches, subsequently described the defence put up that day by the Household Cavalry as one of the finest feats of the war. It may well be that untold deeds of heroism remain yet to be recorded in connection with that morning's work.[10] [10] Among those missing on that morning was the Hon. Francis Lambton. He was subsequently reported to have been killed. The R. Welsh Fusiliers were on the right of the 22nd Brigade and on the left of the Household Cavalry, in trenches which curved back from the Zandvoorde trenches and faced in the main north-west, whereas the Zandvoorde trenches faced south-east. These trenches were at the best ill-constructed affairs, and were weakened in the middle by a big gap where the road from Zandvoorde to Becelaere passed through them.