Reference has already been made to the difficulty experienced prior to the attack by working parties in locating their tasks, and similar difficulty was met with by all troops throughout the operations. The consistently bad atmospheric conditions had rendered aerial photography almost impossible, and all through the action the doubt which existed in the minds of commanders as to the exact position of trenches, our own as well as the enemy's, was a fruitful source of confusion and loss. The assembly of the companies for attack was indeed only accomplished after serious delay owing to the extraordinary but largely justifiable bewilderment of the guides detailed to the Battalion. C Company only reached its position just before dawn after having been led several hundred yards out of its way, to find on arrival that its assembly trench was only knee deep and already filled with wounded. Add to these obstacles to success, the fact that, owing to the previous terrible losses in commissioned ranks, it was impossible to avoid sending into the battle as many as nine officers who had not been previously in action with the Battalion at all, having only a few days earlier arrived from England, and it will be appreciated that the probabilities of success were not great. Zero was fixed for 1.45 p.m., and at that hour the barrage dropped. Two minutes later the Battalion rose out of its trenches and made a gallant attempt to advance. The story of the remainder of the day is a pitiful tragedy.