Lieutenant Westmacott now decided that he must push his men farther forward on the right flank of the wood, so as to command the valley, which lay between the wood and the village of Villers Guislain. He had just moved forward his company, and prolonged the right with two platoons of No. 2 Company, when some dismounted cavalry, consisting of the 18th Bengal Lancers and a detachment of the 7th Dragoon Guards, appeared from the same direction as the enemy attacks. Their orders had not enabled them to attack simultaneously with the 2nd Battalion, and it was in all probability this delayed advance that precipitated the two unfruitful attempts of the enemy to gain the wood. Their arrival was of the greatest value, and at Lieutenant Westmacott’s suggestion they proceeded to reinforce the other companies, which were meanwhile fighting their way through the wood. Several tanks had by now put in an appearance, although the majority had been knocked out before they reached the wood, by a most accurate shell-fire directed by a low-flying aeroplane. The lack of any particular trench for the surviving tanks to attack made their fire ineffectual, and their presence seemed to attract the shells of all the German batteries in the neighbourhood, causing many casualties in the Battalion. Lieutenant Layland-Barratt, who had been assisting Lieutenant Browning to reorganise the companies in the wood, was wounded by a splinter of a shell, and had to retire to a dressing-station. This left only Lieutenant Browning in the wood, and Lieutenant Westmacott and Lieutenant Loftus outside. Lieut.-Colonel Rasch went up to the line, and organised a readjustment of the companies. Lieut.-Colonel E. C. Corbyn, commanding the 18th Bengal Lancers, was asked to withdraw his men to the centre of the wood so as to form a reserve, and dig a support line on some commanding ground in the wood. The dash and fighting spirit of all ranks of this regiment, and the help and experience which Colonel Corbyn gave at that critical moment, made the greatest impression on the Battalion, and enabled the Grenadiers to realise how great a loss his regiment suffered, when he was killed by a shell later in the afternoon. In a letter describing this attack an officer of the 18th Bengal Lancers wrote: We then occupied the captured trench sandwiched in between the Grenadiers and Coldstream.… I have now seen His Majesty’s Guards in action and fought alongside of them, and I take off my hat to them. They can die like gentlemen, without a groan. Four of our men were carrying a Guardsman who appeared to be suffering considerably. I asked him who he was, and he instinctively straightened himself as best he could and said, “A Grenadier,” his tone implying how proud he was to be one, and, what I also thought, “how magnificent they were.”