Second Lieutenant G. H. T. Paton joined the Battalion on the 23rd, and Second Lieutenant A. C. Flower on the 24th. Nothing of interest occurred during the days the Battalion was in the trenches until the 26th, when a party of the enemy raided No. 2 Company trench. About half-a-dozen Germans suddenly got in over the parapet and bombed a working party, which was completely taken by surprise. Second Lieutenant Maclear, hearing the bombing, rushed to the spot, and was instantly killed by a bomb thrown at close quarters. But the German occupation of the trench was only momentary, for bombing parties soon arrived from the right and left, and ejected the raiders, who did not wait but made their escape as fast as they could in the darkness. Second Lieutenant Maclear was an officer who could be ill spared, as he had proved himself to be absolutely fearless and self-reliant, and his loss was felt by every one in the Battalion. Captain Layton was hit in the foot during the repulse of the enemy’s raid, and Sergeant Aiers, senior sergeant of the Battalion, was wounded for the third time. [Sidenote: Aug.] The Guards Division now left the Ypres area and moved down farther south by easy stages. Having been relieved by the 1st Battalion Hampshire Regiment, the 4th Battalion Grenadiers marched to Poperinghe, where they entrained for Bollezeele and then marched to Millain. During the first fortnight in August they moved _via_ Bollezeele, Millain, Arqueves, Mailly-Mallet to the line of trenches at Beaumont-Hamel. On the 7th Lieutenant J. F. J. Joicey-Cecil and Second Lieutenant R. Y. T. Kendall arrived, and on the 18th Captain C. Mitchell, Lieutenant R. Farquhar, and Second Lieutenant J. W. F. Selby-Lowndes joined the Battalion. The four days spent in the trenches at Beaumont-Hamel proved uneventful, although there was a good deal of shelling in addition to the Minenwerfers. On the 19th the Battalion started off for the Somme area, but this necessitated going a long way round by Vauchelles, Gezaincourt, Vignacourt to Ville. Here it rested for ten days, and on September 8 moved to Carnoy. On August 31 Captain E. G. Spencer-Churchill joined the Battalion. CHAPTER XIX THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME A new stage, and a very distinct and important stage, in the Allied operations in the West was marked by the battle of the Somme. It was at last understood, in the summer of 1916, that spasmodic attacks on the German trenches did little to gain any real and comprehensive success, and that, in order to prevent the enemy moving his reserves from one front to another, a simultaneous assault by all the Allies was necessary.