No. 4 Company. No. 3 Company. No. 14 Platoon. No. 13 Platoon. No. 10 Platoon. No. 9 Platoon. ” 16 ” ” 15 ” ” 12 ” ” 11 ” No. 2 Company. No. 1 Company. No. 6 Platoon. No. 5 Platoon. No. 2 Platoon. No. 1 Platoon. ” 8 ” ” 7 ” ” 4 ” ” 3 ” At 4 A.M. the Battalion was in position and everything was ready. Sandwiches and an issue of rum were served out to the men, who then tried to snatch a little sleep. Complete silence reigned, except for the sound of the tanks making their way slowly to their places. At 6 A.M. exactly our heavy guns started, and fired about forty shells apiece in quick succession. This immediately woke up the enemy and brought down their barrage in exactly the place where it was expected, but of course there were no troops there. Orders were passed down at 6.15 to fix bayonets and get ready, and five minutes later the attack started. The first objective or Green line lay over the ridge about 600 yards away, and it was hoped that this would be reached without any serious opposition. The ground in and around Ginchy was a battered mass of irregular ridges and shell-holes, which overlapped and stretched away into the early morning mist. Direction became a matter of the greatest difficulty, as there were absolutely no landmarks to go by. No one except the Irish Guards had seen the ground before, as it had been found impossible to send officers up during the heavy fighting of the last days. On the map it seemed a simple matter to pick out the Lesbœufs road and the church of Lesbœufs, either of which would have served as a guide, but on the actual ground, which was just a great desert of shell-holes, with our own barrage ahead and the enemy’s shells falling all round, it was practically impossible to distinguish anything. Soon after it started off the 3rd Battalion Grenadiers came on unexpected intermediate lines. These were no more than connected shell-holes, but had served to shelter a number of Germans, who fought with the utmost bravery. The guns had not bombarded them, while the creeping barrage had passed over too quickly to do much harm. Though the men holding them were all shot or bayoneted, and the delay thus caused was very slight, it had the effect of breaking the regularity of the formation and telescoping up the men in the rear.