On the afternoon of the 12th May the Company Commanders and Intelligence Officer of the 2/4th Battalion, together with their Platoon Sergeants, were sent forward to reconnoitre the positions held by the 15th Australian Infantry Brigade with a view to taking them over. From Vaulx-Vraucourt to Noreuil the party followed the dried-up bed of the Hirondelle River, the scene of many a desperate struggle during the preceding month. The air was oppressive with the heat of a premature burst of summer weather; the stench from hundreds of unburied bodies and the ominous silence of the guns prior to the attack which was to be renewed the following day caused the whole atmosphere to be heavy with the presage of hard fighting to come. On arrival at the Australian Headquarters the party was informed of the attack organised for the following morning, so that further reconnaissance that day was useless. After the barrage had died down, however, on the 13th a fresh start was made up the communication trench, which was really the Noreuil-Riencourt Road, a bank on the east side preventing observation from Quéant. The Australian attack was successful, although the position was not entirely cleared up, and they were now holding the first two lines of the Hindenburg system, the support line being our front line, and the former front line now forming our support. The intense artillery fire to which this ground had many times been subjected had resulted in the almost total obliteration of the trench lines as such, and the position was really held in a line of shell craters. The arrangements for relief being completed, the 2/4th Battalion moved up on the night of the 13th/14th May to take over the left sector of the Brigade front, from the sunken cross-roads at the north-east corner of Bullecourt to a small communication trench about 500 yards to the east, C Company (Leake) and D Company (Parker) being in the front line with A (Cotton) and B (Bottomley) in support. Battalion Headquarters occupied a central position in the support line. A detached post under 2/Lieut. S. A. Seys was established in a shell hole west of the sunken cross-roads in order to secure touch with the 7th Division in the village. From the right of the 2/4th Battalion the Brigade sector as far as the Noreuil-Riencourt Road was taken up by the 2/3rd Londons. The actual process of the relief, which was not completed until 1.30 a.m. on the 14th May, was exceedingly trying owing to the heavy shelling of the communication trench. Amongst the casualties caused by this were 2/Lieut. F. Stickney (wounded) and Capt. P. H. Burton, R.A.M.C. (killed).