April the 16th, while the men of the 108th Brigade, wearied out and dazed by shell-fire, snatched what rest they could, was the occasion of furious fighting at Wytschaete. The village was lost in the morning, and retaken by a magnificent counter-attack of those veritable paladins of modern war, the Highland Brigade of the 9th Division. It could not be held on the morrow owing to its isolation, and the line had to be withdrawn to the neighbourhood of the old British trenches of 1917. The 17th, to many observers, appeared the blackest day they had seen. Almost everywhere the gains of years of desperate fighting had been lost. Passchendaele and Poelcappelle--to which there will be further reference when we return to the fortunes of the 36th Division--were gone. Huge slices of territory on which the Germans had never stood, or over which they had been hustled in retreat, were now in their possession. Bailleul, which had been at many periods a Corps Headquarters, had fallen. From villages such as Westoutre, where they had lived in comparative peace since 1914, the villagers were rushing out under shell-fire, pushing barrows, staggering under the burden of huge bundles, across the fields. Men asked whether we had any reserves remaining, whether the young American formations would ever be ready, whether the Channel ports could be saved. And yet, though none who watched can have guessed it, hardly even the great soldier now in supreme command of the Allied Armies, or his British colleague, the day may have marked a turning-point. The French were hurrying north. Their troops were already in line on the right of the 9th Division; their field artillery, the "seventy-fives," rushed up, each at the tail of a lorry which carried the detachment, were lining the hills, the Scherpenberg, Mont Rouge, and Mont Vidaigne. The German infantry was suffering heavy loss. Black as was the night, there was, if as yet no faintest light of dawn, the paler gray on the horizon which is its herald. On the evening of that day orders were received for the formation of the Brigade, which could now muster about four hundred rifles, into a composite battalion. This battalion, under the command of Colonel Kelly, was ordered to move down behind Kemmel Hill, in reserve, to be in position by 4 a.m. next morning. It encountered a storm of shelling on its way, having seventy casualties. Among the killed here was Captain Despard, 9th Irish Fusiliers, who had shown great tenacity and fine leadership during the retreat of the previous month. All day the battalion remained here, under very heavy fire, from which Kemmel now afforded but slight protection. At evening it was withdrawn, French troops having taken over the defence of this part of the line. The remnants of the Brigade marched all night, to Siege Camp and Hospital Farm, between Poperinghe and Elverdinghe, rejoining the 36th Division at 5-30 a.m. on the 19th of April.