In view of the situation on both flanks, Brigadier-General Butler gave orders on the night of the 12th that the Brigade was to take up a new line. For this the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards was to have its right resting on Pont Tournant, with the 3rd Battalion Coldstream in the centre, and the 4th Battalion Grenadiers on the left, in touch with the 12th Battalion K.O.Y.L.I., which was to join up with the troops of the Twenty-ninth Division. In response to General Butler's request that the line held by his brigade might be contracted, the Fifth Division was ordered to take over the line as far as L'Epinette inclusive. As soon as this relief was completed, the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards and one company of the Coldstream were withdrawn into Brigade Reserve, and the 210th Field Company R.E. went up, to help the 4th Battalion Grenadiers dig the new line. To replace some of the losses in the Battalion, Captain Minchin, Lieutenant Lyon, and Lieutenant Burt were sent up, and Lieutenant Murray-Lawes went to Battalion Headquarters. Colonel Pilcher's orders were to delay the enemy at all costs, so as to give the Australian Division time to detrain and come up to that part of the line. The new Battalion frontage was 1800 yards long; the country was absolutely flat, with not a single hedge to mask the trenches, and the line was held by companies in isolated posts. So heavily had the Battalion suffered in the fighting on the 12th that it had only 9 officers and 180 other ranks left--that is to say, one man to every ten yards of front. As the Battalion Headquarters had been destroyed, Colonel Pilcher assembled the newly-arrived officers at the Irish Guards Headquarters, and explained to them that the new line was to be dug east of the Vieux Berquin--Neuf Berquin road, so that the village of La Couronne and the cross-roads south of it might be protected. When Captain Minchin reached the leading companies, Captain Pryce told him the men were so dead beat that he thought they were quite incapable of digging a new line, and the Adjutant of the K.O.Y.L.I. said his men were in much the same condition. When this was reported to Colonel Pilcher, he went up himself to explain how things stood. He could find no trace of the machine-guns from the Thirty-first Division, which should have been there. The Germans were so close that they could be heard talking quite distinctly. He found Captain Pryce, who was quite worn out from want of sleep, and made it clear that the orders must be carried out, as it was absolutely essential to alter the position of the trenches. The plans had been changed, and the line the Battalion was now to occupy lay between La Couronne and the burnt farm, that had been the Battalion Headquarters.