The system of communications taken over by the Signal Company was in keeping with the general condition of the trenches. Shallow buried cables were found in the back areas and open cables forward of brigades. As these were continually being cut, the work of the company became increasingly difficult. The forward communication trenches were so overlooked from Pilckem Ridge that lines could not be mended in daytime. As subsidiary methods which were adopted in later times were not then used, the standard of communication was necessarily less high than it had been in the Laventie area. The Germans renewed their activities on the extreme left of the line on the 19th, when they made another attack on F 34. This was now no more than a post, quite isolated and in a very exposed position, not more than 20 yards from a strongly held German trench, with which it was connected by a sap. It was held by one officer and 30 men of the 12th K.R.R.C., who had relieved the 12th R.B. four days before. About 4.30 P.M., after sweeping the parapet of F 34 with machine-gun fire, the Germans seem to have come up the sap from their own line and rushed the post. The S.O.S. call was sent, whereupon the artillery, assisted by the French, put down a barrage from the canal bank round trenches F 34 and 33, five batteries of the Divisional Artillery alone firing over 1200 rounds. Another party of the enemy--they were estimated at 200 in all--got in on the right of F 34 and also on the right of F 33, between which post and the next, F 30, there was a gap of 300 yards in dead ground where the intervening trenches had been destroyed. The N.C.O. and 12 men in F 33 were thus cut off, and all except one man were captured. The first intimation received that these men had been taken prisoner came from the German wireless communiqué. F 30 was then isolated. As the Divisional Commander decided that owing to the exposed position of the captured trenches no counter-attack should he made, the garrison of F 30 was ordered to withdraw. On the 20th of February began a series of most successful artillery bombardments, which were carried out daily up to the 25th, and continued after that date at frequent intervals as long as the Division remained in this sector. These bombardments produced retaliation from the German guns and trench mortars, which did a good deal of damage to our positions. Infantry action was confined to patrols which were frequently out and did good work.