On the night of the 16th the 3rd Regiment retired to the support line, and their place in the front trenches was taken by the 1st, under Lieutenant-Colonel Dawson. Meantime, large working parties had been employed in widening and deepening the communication trench between the Pimple and our front line and back to Flers Switch. During the 17th Dawson took his company commanders round the whole trench system, pointing out the limits of each company’s front and the points to be attacked, for on that day orders had come from the division for an assault in the early morning of the 18th against the same objectives which had been attacked without success on the 12th. Such coaching was a most needful preliminary, for every hour, under the shelling and the weather, the landscape was growing more featureless. To the eye it was only a waste of wrinkled grey mud. [Illustration: SCENE OF SOUTH AFRICAN BRIGADE’S ADVANCE AGAINST THE BUTTE DE WARLENCOURT POSITION.] All that evening and for most of the night heavy rain fell, so that the trenches and parapets were mere undulations in a quagmire. The front-line trench being deep and narrow with few fire-steps, it was difficult for the men to leave it, and realizing this, the company commanders began getting their troops out more than an hour before the time fixed for the attack. Zero hour was at 3.40 a.m., and when it came the three assaulting companies of the 1st Regiment were already for the most part formed up in No Man’s Land. [Sidenote: _Oct. 18._] Keeping as close as they dared to their barrage, the South Africans advanced, with “C” Company on their left, “B” Company in the centre, and “A” on the right. They disappeared into the rain, and for several hours were unheard of. When news came it was news of failure. “C” Company, under Captain Jenkins, passed the communication trench leading south from the Pimple, and came to that junction of Tail and Snag trenches which we called the Nose of the Switch. Here they were held up by wire at the foot of a steep bank in front of the German line, and were also heavily bombed from the trenches themselves. The leading platoon was almost entirely shot down, and though an officer and six men of the following platoon managed to get into the German trench, they, too, immediately fell. The only officer left was Captain Jenkins, who was himself wounded; and, seeing that the enemy line was so strongly held, and that there was no hope of success for what remained of his company, he ordered the company sergeant-major to withdraw the survivors to their original line. The casualties of “C” Company were 69 out of the 100 who crossed the parapet.