confident control of aid post arrangements. We had now become a part of the third army, and as such we were destined to remain until the conclusion of the war. General Byng was not a stranger to the 42nd, for it was as a part of his corps on Gallipoli that they made their first fight against the Turk. As the reports have it, "the situation was obscure" on this portion of the third army front. As far as we were concerned the 40th division had experienced a very severe handling but were still fighting gamely. They had recaptured Mory twice and were now expected to be in possession of the greater part of the village, while the Guards on their left were only yielding ground inch by inch. What had happened to the right of this was not very clear. The orders of the 127th brigade were to go up and relieve some fragments of the 40th division in Mory on the night of the 24th, and when darkness fell we set out with this object in view, but such plain, straightforward work as that was not to be achieved in these queer days. Events moved quickly and a change in the situation was an hourly occurrence; it therefore devolved upon unit commanders, and as far as possible commanders of higher formations to act with initiative and resource. [Illustration: ROUND ABOUT BAPAUME] The head of the brigade column had reached Gomiecourt when word was received that the enemy was attacking again, and there were vague reports that Behagnies had either been captured or was being hard pressed. It was considered inadvisable to continue the journey to Mory, and more important to hold up this possible enveloping movement. We were therefore deflected to the right, and then those things were done which we used to practise on the desert, but never expected to put into use in France. We moved across the open in artillery formation by battalions and finally deployed into a defensive position. Meanwhile the guns were hammering away at S.O.S. speed from their hastily improvised positions either on or near the roads. The difficulty of all this work was not diminished by the darkness, and it was with some astonishment that we found the 125th brigade coming through our lines diagonally. One or two stragglers from other divisions came in and told stories of heavy enemy attacks, but a gunner major rode back from the front on a white horse, and said the situation was not so bad as these men's reports had intimated. Still, there seemed to be a good deal of confusion, and the 7th were somewhat bewildered, not knowing quite what to expect next. Meanwhile they longed hard for daylight in order to get their whereabouts and some idea of the lie of the land.