The arrangements for the South African Brigade were that they should attack on a two-battalion front of 600 yards, with the 4th Regiment on the left and the 3rd on the right, each battalion attacking on a two-company front, supported by its two remaining companies, while each company in turn would be on a two-platoon front. The 2nd Regiment was in support on the left, and the 1st on the right. When the first two objectives were taken the two battalions in support were to become the attacking battalions for the third objective—the Brown Line—while the two original assaulting battalions remained in support. The 1st Regiment was under Lieutenant-Colonel Heal, the 2nd under Lieutenant-Colonel Tanner, the 3rd under Lieutenant-Colonel Thackeray, and the 4th under Lieutenant-Colonel Christian. Pontoons were thrown across the Scarpe during the night to facilitate the march of the men to the assembly area; and the Royal Engineers attached to the Brigade blew twenty-six craters in No Man’s Land to accommodate the leading waves of the attack. By 2 a.m. on the morning of Easter Monday, 9th April, all four battalions of the Brigade were in position. Zero hour was at 5.30 in the morning. At 4 a.m. a drizzle began which changed presently to drifts of thin snow. It was intensely cold, and it was scarcely half-light, so the troops waiting for the signal saw before them only a dark mist flecked with snowflakes. But at the appointed moment the British guns broke into such a fire as had not yet been seen on any battle-ground on earth. It was the first hour of the Somme repeated, but tenfold more awful. As our men went over the parapets they felt as if they were under the protection of some supernatural power, for the heaven above them was one canopy of shrieking steel. There were now no enemy front trenches; there were no second-line trenches; only a hummocky waste of craters and broken wire, over which our barrage crept relentlessly. The great deeds of that day are known to all: how the Canadians at a bound reached the crest of Vimy; how the 15th Division carried the Railway Triangle and Feuchy; how the fortress of the Harp fell to the 3rd Division; how Telegraph Hill fell to the 14th and Observation Hill to the 12th, and Neuville-Vitasse to the 56th. We are here concerned with only one part of the battle—the doings of the 9th Division, and especially of the South African Brigade.