Soon after 6.30 I was just going out with all the rest, and the men ready to move off, when the Colonel said to me: "Ryan, I am taking every man out on this show, and nobody quite knows where we are going or what is in front of us. I have no time to write. You must go back to Brigade Headquarters, see the General, and arrange about ammunition and transport. Collect anything you can and report where and how the Battalion is gone; the whole Brigade attacked, much split up." I collected six men, all I could find, got back to Brigade Headquarters, all under fire, reported, and was sent to fetch up doctor, stretcher bearers, ammunition, food, and stragglers, everything having disappeared in the furious advance of the previous day and night. The men were without food or water for 46 hours, except what they had on them. By 11 o'clock I was back at Brigade Headquarters, reported I had done all I could, that the Regiment had disappeared into nothingness--not a trace of them--no reports in--heavy firing everywhere. We were the right regiment of the Brigade, the first Brigade on our right, and pushed into a gap. I kept my six men and went out to locate the Battalion by yelling out, using my glasses and meeting wounded men. I sized up trouble. I went to the Brigadier and reported. He had no help to give, no men left to put in. I sent out again, splitting my men into patrols of two each, promised them anything if they could get to the companies and get reports. They went out and were back again by 8 o'clock (it was dark at 4) all of them under fire, with reports. "Very few officers left, companies lying out under fire, search-lights of the enemy going up, many casualties, no orders, Colonel wounded, two Senior Majors killed. Send us orders, please." I reported to the Brigade again, saying something _must_ be done, for, if still there when daybreak came, not a man would be left. All this time they were getting no support from any regiment on their right or left, in a bad gap of bog, and dyke and mud. By 9 a.m. no orders had got to me to try and get them back. The Brigade people, quite unable to communicate with them themselves, the rest of the attack hung up by fire, and things looked rotten. I had collected odds and ends--food, cookers, everything I could--but at my wit's end to know what to do as I realized only too well the impossible position the Regiment was in. Wounded came trickling in; to make matters worse, it was pitch black night and beastly cold, with heavy rain--not a light or a sign or a road or a path, only dykes, knee-deep in mud and slime, and always the German rifle fire and ours, intermittent, and flames shot up like rockets by them.