[Sidenote: Sept. 16.] More parties were sent out at dawn next day to collect the wounded, some of whom must have been lying out between the lines for nearly two days. A good many were brought in, but the work had to be stopped as soon as it was light, as the Germans deliberately shelled our stretcher parties. About 11 A.M. a shell set fire to a large stack, on the right of the farm, occupied by Captain Ridley and two men--they had been posted on top of it to snipe the German fire observation post, more than 1100 yards away. Captain Ridley had taken no notice of the shells that had been bursting all round him, but coolly stuck to his work, but now he was forced to abandon it, dazed by the explosion, and unhurt, though both the men with him were wounded. Helped by the blazing rick to locate the farm, the German artillery now began to plaster it with common shell, shrapnel, and H.E. It is possible that if they had known it was full of their own wounded they would not have gone for it quite so furiously. However that may be, they finally got it alight, and then followed a scene of hopelessly illogical chivalry, our men risking their lives to save the German wounded from their own shells. The wounded were eventually carried out of the burning building and put in a safer place. At the same time, the Battalion Headquarters and the horses were moved down into the quarry. As this violent shelling seemed to portend an attack, the trenches were fully manned, with the result that there were many casualties. One shell landed right in the trench and killed Lieutenant Welby and the men near him. He had been slightly wounded in the shoulder a couple of days before, but had refused to go to hospital. Although our gunners replied gamely, they could not compete with the lavish German expenditure of ammunition. A report having come in that the enemy were advancing, Major Jeffreys ordered No. 2 Company to come up from the quarry, and line its northern edge, so as to be available as a support. It had hardly been there a quarter of an hour when an 8-inch high explosive just missed the farm, and, grazing the roof, pitched right on the edge of the quarry. A terrific explosion followed, and out of the 103 men who had been brought up, only 44 were left, all the rest being killed or wounded. This same shell also killed three officers and a large number of men of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry, and Lieutenant Huggan of the R.A.M.C., but Major Jeffreys, Major Lord Bernard Lennox, Captain Powell, and Captain Pike escaped untouched, for some unaccountable reason, though they were sitting within a few yards of where it exploded, and men were killed and wounded on every side of them, some of them under cover. The trees on the bank fell down with a crash, and the whole quarry itself was filled with a dense yellow-black smoke.