Next morning Lieut.-Colonel Lord Henry Seymour was ordered to withdraw one company from the line, and sent a message to Lieut.-Colonel de Crespigny, asking him whether he would prefer to keep No. 4 Company on his right or No. 3 on his left. He decided to keep No. 3, and Captain Spencer-Churchill accordingly brought his Company back to Headquarters. While moving back through the barrage with No. 4 Company, Lieutenant Abel-Smith was wounded in the arm, and there were about seventy casualties among other ranks. Second Lieutenant R. Gault, in charge of the sapping platoon, went up to help the 2nd Battalion, and while putting out posts in front of the line was shot through the head. Instructions were given for Corkran’s Brigade to pass through the leading brigades and continue the attack on the third objective, but owing to a protest having been referred back to the Corps Commander, the actual attack did not start until 1.15. The 1st Battalion Grenadiers and 1st Battalion Welsh Guards carried it out, with Nos. 2 and 3 Companies from the 4th Battalion Grenadiers in support. But this advance was soon held up by the enemy’s machine-guns, and the battalions were told to dig in where they were. No. 3 Company from the 4th Battalion took part in the operation, and Sergeant Higgins particularly distinguished himself by clearing the Germans out of a trench and killing several single-handed. That night Corkran’s Brigade was relieved by the Twentieth Division and returned to Carnoy. There it remained in bivouacs until the 20th, when it returned to the line just north of Ginchy. On the 18th Second Lieutenant H. C. S. Maine joined from the entrenching battalion, and on the 19th Second Lieutenant A. R. Ellice and a draft of thirty men arrived. [Sidenote: Sept. 20.] Going up to the trenches in front of Lesbœufs at 7 P.M. on the 20th to dig communication and assembly trenches for the attack of the 25th, the 4th Battalion had what seemed an interminable march, owing to the congestion of the traffic and the bad state of the ground. The only available road was one mass of transport, guns, etc., and so deep was the mud in some places that it was difficult to cover more than half-a-mile an hour. To make matters worse the guides who had been supplied lost their way, and it was not till three o’clock next morning that the relief was complete. The front-line trench was very shallow, and not by any means bullet-proof, while the communication trench called Gas Alley was filled with British and German corpses.