This week of continual working parties was most exhausting to all concerned. The distance to be covered each night to and from the scene of the work was about three and a half miles in each direction, and the labour of the march was increased tenfold by the shocking condition of the ground, which was still waterlogged, and, away from the defined tracks, nothing but a series of lakes formed by shell craters full of water. Heavy as the cable line duties were found, the laying of the duckboard track during the latter half of the week proved still more onerous. Not only had the troops to march to St Julien from the Canal Bank, but the duckboards which were drawn from a dump at Alberta Farm had to be carried on the men's shoulders for some five hundred yards to the starting-point of the track. Progress was slow through the heavy going and the continual delays caused by German Véry lights. Although some two hundred and forty yards were laid during the four nights' work, and the track was carried forty yards beyond our most advanced positions, the task was never completed. The work was obviously fraught with considerable risk of serious casualties owing to the large numbers of men employed, and in the circumstances the losses incurred during the week were light; 11 men being hit on the 11th, while on the 15th 2/Lieut. Carlisle was killed and 2/Lieut. Pike wounded, with 2 men killed and 5 wounded. On the night of the 18th the 2/4th Londons relieved the 2/3rd Londons in the line, which was still held by isolated posts, and the following evening assembly for the attack began at about 9 p.m. The 58th Division front of attack was entirely north of the Hanebeek, a small stream which runs almost due east from St Julien, the attack south of the stream being undertaken by the 164th Brigade of the 55th Division. The 58th Divisional front was taken up by the 173rd Brigade on the right with the 174th on its left, the assaulting columns of the 173rd Brigade consisting of four companies, each 100 strong, of the 2/4th Londons. The 2/3rd Londons were in reserve to make a dummy attack, with one company on the waterlogged portions of the front over which no advance was possible.