After this failure the attacking troops fell back to the trenches midway in the wood, and for the rest of the day had to endure a steady concentrated fire to which they had no means of effective reply. It was hot, dusty weather, and the enemy’s curtain of shells made it almost impossible to bring up food and water or to remove the many casualties. That afternoon Lieutenant-Colonel Dawson, commanding the 1st Regiment, met Lukin in Longueval, and reported that his men were greatly exhausted. He asked for an early relief; but Lukin could only repeat his divisional commander’s instructions that at all costs the wood must be held. At the same time he was so impressed with the signs of strain and fatigue on the faces of the men that he submitted the matter to General Furse. The situation, indeed, was becoming desperate. Longueval and Delville had proved to be far too strongly held to be overrun at the first attack by one division. At the same time, until they were taken, the objectives of the battle of the 14th had not been achieved, and the stability of the whole right wing of our new front was endangered. Fresh troops could not yet be spared for the work, and the thing must be attempted again by the same weary and depleted battalions. It was a vicious circle. Longueval could not be won and held without Delville; Delville could not be won and held without Longueval; so what strength remained to the 9th Division had perforce to be divided between two simultaneous objectives. [Illustration: LIEUTENANT W. F. FAULDS, V.C., 1st Regiment, South African Infantry.] That Sunday evening it was decided to make another effort against the north-west corner next morning. At 10.30 p.m. orders were received to withdraw all the infantry in Longueval village to a line south of Princes Street, and all infantry in the wood to the area east of the Strand, in order that the north-west corner of Delville and the north end of Longueval might be bombarded. The bombardment was to cease at 2 a.m. on the morning of Monday, the 17th, when the 27th Brigade and two companies of the 1st South Africans were to repeat their attack of the Sunday. Lieutenant-Colonel Tanner, commanding in the wood, was instructed to order the men of the 2nd Regiment, who were now holding the Strand, to move slowly forward so as to narrow the front of the 1st Regiment attacking from Princes Street. [Sidenote: _July 17._] The attack was made shortly before dawn, and did not succeed. Once again machine-gun fire from the fatal enclosures blocked any advance from west or south. The enemy, too, was in force just inside the angle of the wood. The 2nd South Africans, moving west from the Strand according to plan, met with a stubborn resistance, and were forced to fall back to their original position.