It was, however, discovered at dawn that parties of Germans had entered Golancourt in the darkness, and that our men had evacuated the village. This was a very serious blow, as it threw into confusion schemes formulated overnight between General Hessey, commanding the 109th Brigade, and General Cochrane, commanding the 61st. These two commanders had planned a counter-offensive to ease the pressure on the left flank, and blunt the pronounced salient into which the line was being forced. General Nugent had put at General Hessey's disposal a composite battalion under Major Knox, and had later strengthened his line by sending up three hundred details from Beaulieu, servants, orderlies, grooms from Headquarters, and the personnel of the Signal School. These were formed into two companies, under the command of Captain W. Smyth, R.E., attached to the General Staff, and Captain C. Drummond, A.D.C. to General Nugent. Major Knox's detachment was to move _via_ Golancourt, approach Aubigny as closely as might be in the mist, and attack the village at eight o'clock. Meanwhile the 9th Inniskillings, with a company of details, was to reoccupy Brouchy. General Cochrane arranged to retake Eaucourt with a hundred men of the 284th Army Troops Company, R.E., who had come under his orders, commanded by two of his own infantry officers. This he had succeeded in doing before midnight on the 23rd. Touch was obtained by the attacking force with the 7th D.C.L.I., on the railway where crossed by the Ollézy-Eaucourt Road. But Major Knox came under heavy machine-gun fire from Golancourt on his march, and was unable to make headway. The attacks upon Aubigny and Brouchy were therefore cancelled, and the companies of details thrown in on the left of the 9th Inniskillings. The position of the 7th D.C.L.I. on the railway was now impossible. The battalion was being pressed on either flank, and its right was in air. At eleven o'clock General Cochrane ordered it to fall back from the railway, and to take up a line in touch with the fragments of the 12th King's, a thousand yards west of Cugny, roughly parallel with the Cugny-Eaucourt Road. The right company of the D.C.L.I. had to fight a rearguard action to cover the withdrawal, and suffered considerable loss from machine-gun fire. Upon its heels the Germans pushed forward their machine-guns and a number of single field guns which had been brought across the Canal.