Early the next day (8th) we reached Audregnies, where we went through the other Brigade, and had three objectives assigned, but it was obviously impossible that we should accomplish them in the time that was left to us in the day. Near Wiheries there was a fair amount of indiscriminate shelling on forward slopes and we lost some men. However, we moved on in artillery formation, keeping pretty well closed up and halted in the outskirts of Blaugies where we managed to get on the line of our first objective without further trouble and had to pass the night there as we could not overcome the Boche machine-gun fire. November 9th was a day which I do not think any Artists who were then with us are ever likely to forget. We advanced in all 15,000 yards, as the crow flies, which of course meant considerably more trekking, and a good bit had to be done through woods and across country. We started off something like a triumphal procession, as we were the first English troops to enter Blaugies, and we were met by the inhabitants, who rushed out and kissed us, old and young alike, and offered us coffee, liqueurs, and anything they could lay their hands on. It was really pathetically sad, and yet very funny, and it was with difficulty one refrained from crying, by the necessity of laughing. Passing through Blaugies, we ran into our own barrage, which eventually I got stopped, as it was falling amongst the cavalry and was holding up our advance. From that moment we were not bothered with any more barrages, the artillery being attached to us, which is really far the most sensible way in going through open country, as we were. It gives one the means of visible retaliation, which is always lacking when dependent entirely on artillery behind you, whose doings, except barrage work you know nothing about. We next had to go through the Wood of Sars-la-Bruyere and on to the village of the same name, where again we were welcomed by the inhabitants in like manner. I was presented with a large bouquet of flowers, tied up with Belgian ribbon and had to walk through the village carrying the beastly thing. The centre of this village had been our last objective, and we had no sooner got through than we had orders to move on again to a railway embankment on the other side of the wood to the east of Sars-la-Bruyere. Further orders came extending this objective right up to the Mons-Maubeuge Road in front of Quevy-le-Petit, so we packed up once more and started off. Then taking two runners with me, I started off straight through the wood, arrived in the village before the Battalion and took up my H.Q. in the Burgomaster’s house, which had only been left a few hours earlier by a General of the German Army, who had stopped to watch our advance and then gone off in a motor car. At last the Battalion was in possession of their objective and settled down for a few hours rest.