The new sector was at the north-west corner of the great salient made by the Lys offensive. It ran from Fontainehouck, a hamlet north-east of Meteren, which was in the hands of the enemy, to the high ground south of the Croix de Poperinghe. It was about a mile and a half north of Bailleul. Here, as all along the line of hills, the enemy was at heavy disadvantage. His territory was overlooked. Every movement, every gun-flash, could be noted from Mont Noir and the other hills. Bailleul crumbled away before the eyes of our men. St. Jans Cappel, for so long Divisional Headquarters in days that now seemed very far away, was not far behind the front line. It was to a great extent destroyed. Many of the isolated farms, with which that countryside is bestrewn, were, however, undamaged, right up to the front line. The country was deep in crops, the wheat having to be cut round the outposts to prevent surprise attacks and provide a field of fire. As for vegetables, the men had all the potatoes and green peas they could eat without walking a hundred yards from where they slept. After Ypres, it was a very agreeable position. German artillery fire was not as a rule severe, owing to the fact that the battery positions were overlooked from the hills. The worst disturbance was caused by night bombing, assiduously practised by the enemy. Casualties were low. They would have been lower had our troops been as circumspect in following the hedges, and confining their movement to the night, as their predecessors, the French, had been. But the lesson of "lying low," so well learnt by Frenchman and German, never had been mastered by the British soldier, nor ever was. On July the 19th the 9th Division, in line on the right, captured Meteren, the Artillery of the 36th Division co-operating in the attack. The 36th Division did not at first strive to improve its position in a similar way, but contented itself with raids on a large scale. One, by the 109th Brigade, resulted in very heavy fighting, the enemy being on the alert. Though the enemy's casualties were estimated at thirty, and a prisoner was taken, the raid hardly ranked as a success, since our casualties were seventeen, including four men missing. The 107th Brigade, on the left, had a more satisfactory venture. A strong patrol of the 2nd Rifles surrounded a farm in which there was an enemy garrison of ten. Two of these were taken prisoner, the rest killed. The patrol had not a casualty, despite heavy machine-gun fire. Further prisoners were taken by the 107th Brigade on a later occasion, while the only raid attempted by the enemy, from Haagedoorne, where his troops held the old railhead, was beaten off by rifle fire, even though the Germans got within twenty yards of the outposts before being seen.