The shelling, moreover, was mixed, big and little stuff together, proving that the enemy field-guns were amazingly well forward. This orchestra was enlivened with blasts and rips of machine-gun fire from every unexpected quarter. All the 23rd of March was confusion, heavy shelling, and contradictory orders from brigades and divisions that lay near them; and a certain amount of shelling from our own artillery, varied by direct attacks on the trenches themselves. In these the enemy failed, were cut down by our directed musketry, and left many dead. At the end of the day the Battalion was told to shift to the right of the 4th Grenadiers and so relieve the 13th Yorkshire and the 21st Middlesex who had suffered a good deal. They had hardly got into their new place when firing was heard from Mory on their right, and men were seen streaming down the road, with word that the enemy were through at Mory Copse and in full cry for Ervillers. This left the Battalion largely in the air and necessitated making some sort of flank to the southward, as well as collecting what remained of the Yorkshires and Headquarters details, and using them for the same purpose, much as it had been with the 1st Battalion at First Ypres, centuries ago. (“Yes, you may say that we made defensive flanks to every quarter of the world. We was _all_ defensive flank and front line at once and the same time. But if any one tells you that any one knew what was done, or why ’twas done, in these days, ye will have strong reason to doubt them. We was anywhere and Jerry was everywhere, and our own guns was as big a nuisance as Jerry. When we had done all we could we fell back. We did not walk away by platoons.”) They worked, then, at their poor little defensive flanks, and, between shellings, saw the enemy streaming down into the valley towards Béhagnies and Ervillers. Mory seemed to have gone altogether, and north and south of the cut and pitted hills they could hear the enemy’s riot all over the forlorn Somme uplands. At evening came orders to fall back on the high ground from Courcelles to Moyenneville, three or four miles to their rear. This was none the less welcome because a battery of our own big guns had been dutifully shelling Battalion Headquarters and the Sensée valley at large for some hours past. Lieutenant Dalton and Captain the Hon. H. B. O’Brien were both wounded. There must have been a good deal of unnecessary slaughter on the Somme during those days. Gunners, of course, could not always tell whether our people had evacuated a position or were holding on; and at a few thousand yards’ range in failing lights, mistakes are bound to happen.