Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton explained to the company officers the general plan of attack, with some more detailed particulars about the part the 4th Battalion was to play, but on being ordered at once to accompany General Heyworth, who was going into Loos, he handed the command of the Battalion to Major Ponsonby, and told him to bring it to a position of deployment in Loos, where he himself would meet them. At the same time Captain Aubrey Fletcher was sent forward to reconnoitre the best route into Loos, and Lieutenant Blundell was ordered to bring up the Brigade S.A.A. and tool limbers to Fort Galatz. At 2.30 the 4th Battalion moved off in fours down the Vermelles--Douai road, with No. 1 Company, under Captain Morrison, leading, and on reaching the top of the ridge assumed artillery formation. The order of march was: 4th Battalion Grenadiers, Welsh Guards, 2nd Battalion Scots Guards, and 1st Battalion Grenadiers. For one and a half miles, under heavy artillery fire--not shrapnel, but percussion H.E.--and in full view of the Germans, the 3rd Guards Brigade advanced in artillery formation. Perfect order was maintained in spite of the shells, which burst all round, and there was not a man out of his place. Nothing more splendid has ever been recorded in the annals of the Guards than the manner in which every battalion in the Brigade faced this trying ordeal. The 4th Battalion Grenadiers was all the time under machine-gun fire from the right, and during this stage of the attack Lieutenant Hoare was wounded. On nearing Loos the 4th Battalion Grenadiers was ordered to double down the slope and get into a trench which ran through some ruined houses. The German artillery was now directing its attention to Loos, and using a great many gas shells. Major Ponsonby, guided by Captain Aubrey Fletcher, led the Battalion down an old German communication trench immediately north of Fort Galatz. It had already gone some distance along the trench when General Heyworth arrived at full gallop down the road, and ordered Captain Ridley and the men in rear of him who had not yet entered the communication trench to follow him at once. It would seem that the Battalion had either advanced too far or was going in the wrong direction. In any case from that moment it was divided into two parts.