The enemy on that front were by now across the steeply banked Selle River, but the large, straggling village of Solesmes, of which St. Python is practically a suburb, was still held by them and would have to be cleaned out house-to-house. Moreover, it was known to be full of French civils and getting them away in safety would not make the situation less difficult. ST. PYTHON It was given out at Brigade conference on the 17th that the Sixty-first Division would take place on the right of the Guards Division and the Nineteenth on its left in the forthcoming attack, and that the Sixty-first would attend to Solesmes, while the Guards Division pushed on north-east between St. Python and Haussy on a mile-wide front through the village of Escarmain to Capelle, a distance of some three and a half miles. The 1st and 3rd Brigades would lead, the 2nd in reserve, and the passage of the Selle would be effected in the dark by such bridges as the Sappers could put up. The Battalion moved nearer their assembly areas to St. Hilaire-les-Cambrai, on the night of the 18th after Company Commanders had thoroughly explained to their men what was in store; and on the 19th those commanders, with the Intelligence Officer, Captain Vernon, went up to high ground overlooking the battle-field. It was a closer and more crumpled land than they had dealt with hitherto, its steep-sided valleys cut by a multitude of little streams running from nor’-west to south-east, with the interminable ruled line of the Bavai road edging the great Forest of Mormal which lay north of Landrecies. The wheel was swinging full circle, and men who had taken part in that age-ago retreat from Mons, amused themselves by trying to pick out familiar details in the landscape they had been hunted across four years before. But it was misty and the weather, faithful ally of the Germans to the last, was breaking again. Just as the Battalion moved off from St. Hilaire to their area on the railway line from Valenciennes to Le Cateau, rain began and continued till six next morning, making every condition for attack as vile as it could. They dug them shallow trenches in case of shell-fire, and sent down parties to reconnoitre the bridges over the Selle. Four bridges were “available,” _i.e._ existed in some shape, on or near the Battalion front, but no one had a good word to say for any of them.