In order to make clear the operations that followed, it is necessary to describe in some detail the trenches on this front. They were numbered from the right, B 15 to 17, D 19 to 22, and E 23 (just south-east of Krupp Farm) being in the area of the right brigade. The left brigade trenches--those with which we are at first chiefly concerned--were E 24 to 29 and F 30 to 35. The ground between the canal and the German lines was nothing but a quagmire. It was therefore impossible to construct continuous front line trenches, and those that did exist had in many places been blown in. These isolated sections of trench, separated from each other by gaps which in places were 80 yards or more across, were held by parties varying in strength from 8 or 10 men to a platoon. They were narrow and shallow, the parapets low and rarely bullet-proof, with very little wire in front of them. There was only a very small parados in some places and hardly anywhere any revetment. There were practically no dug-outs. Communication trenches were few and bad; they were extremely difficult to drain and were constantly being demolished by shell fire, so that rations, R.E. material, etc., had to be brought up a long way from the dumps under very difficult conditions. The Germans had constructed concrete blockhouses all along the front at short intervals, and their position on the Pilckem ridge entirely dominated the whole ground as far as Ypres, rendering any movement in the front areas very difficult. The 60th Brigade, under Brig.-General Roy, moved into these trenches on the night of the 11th/12th of February, coming under the orders of the G.O.C. 14th Division for the following day until the rest of the 20th had come up into the line and Major-General Davies had taken over command. The 6th K.S.L.I. were on the right of the front line and the 12th R.B. on the left. The relief began about 9 P.M. and was still in progress when the Germans opened a very heavy bombardment on the left of the line where the 12th R.B. were taking over from the 9th K.R.R.C. A bombing attack then developed against the two trenches F 34 and F 35 on the extreme left, accompanied by artillery and trench mortar fire on the communication trenches leading to the canal bank. The attack on F 34 came from the right, from the front and from the left front, but failed. In F 35 the number of available bombs soon ran out, owing to two bomb stores having been blown up by shells, and great difficulty was experienced in getting up a further supply through communication trenches knee-deep in mud. The Germans bombed their way up the whole of the trench, at the end of which they were stopped by rifle fire. Major H. L. Riley, commanding the 12th R.B., then asked the 12th K.R.R.C. for two bombing sections; with these in support Lieut. Gribble, the bombing officer of the 12th R.B., counter-attacked, and after half an hour recaptured the whole of F 35 as well as a German bombing post. Lieut.