Major Gault was badly wounded in the arm and thigh by a shell at 7 a. m., and as it was impossible to move him, he lay in a trench for ten hours, enduring without a murmur intense suffering. Lieutenant Niven, the next senior officer who was unwounded, took over the command. The Germans now brought heavy howitzers into action, using high explosives which, with the work of the field guns, wrought havoc among the trenches, demolishing them at some points. The enemy's infantry made an attack at 9 o'clock, but were assailed by such heavy machine-gun and rifle fire that they were at first halted and then driven to seek cover. The Germans lost heavily in this encounter, but the battalion also suffered many casualties. Of the officers, Captain Hill, and Lieutenants Martin, Triggs, and De Bay were wounded. The commanding officer, Lieutenant Niven, succeeded in establishing contact with the King's Own Light Infantry on the left, and the Fourth Rifle Brigade on the right, but as these formations had been badly punished, they were unable to afford any assistance. The Germans had taken the exact range of the Canadian machine guns and buried every one of them. The gunners dug them out and served them again. One gun was buried by the enemy fire three times, dug up and put into action, but was finally demolished by a shell which also destroyed the whole section. Corporal Dover, who had served his gun throughout this trying period, lost a leg and an arm in the explosion. After being dug out by comrades, and while he was being lowered into the trench, an enemy bullet ended the brave man's sufferings. The Germans maintained this deadly and destructive fire, and by 10.30 fully half of the right fire trench had been demolished. Lieutenant Denison then ordered Lieutenant Clark to withdraw the remnant of command into a communication trench on the right, while he held on himself with Lieutenant Lane and a few men to that part of the fire trench which was still tenable. The German guns continued their deadly work. Lieutenant Edwards was killed. The left fire trench was blown in, and the machine guns silenced. Sergeant Scott and a few men who survived entered a communication trench and held fast until it too was demolished. Lieutenant Crawford, serving in the hottest corners in the morning, was badly wounded. Captain Adamson, wounded in the shoulder, continued to serve out small ammunition with a single arm. Sergeant Major Fraser was killed while performing similar work. There were now only four officers remaining: Lieutenants Papineau, Niven, Vandenberg, and Clark. Lieutenants Niven and Clark were troopers when the war began. When the supplies of small-arms ammunition were almost exhausted about noon on May 7, 1915, it was the snipers of the battalion who carried messages across the heavily shell-swept ground to the brigade headquarters, and to the Reserve Battalion at Belle-Waarde Lake in the rear.