The same evening the 4th London moved at 6 p.m. from Calonne to Lestrem where it arrived at midnight and went into billets. Its stay there, however, was short as within two hours it was turned out in order to move further forward to Lacouture, about four miles west of Neuve Chapelle, reaching there about 7.30 a.m. on the 12th March. Similar forward moves were made by the remainder of the Brigade in view of its impending occupation of the line. When the 4th Londons reached Lacouture the village was under shell fire from the enemy's heavy guns and the behaviour of all ranks under fire for the first time was highly commendable. But here also the hopes of rest on which the thoughts of all had been centred far more than on the German shells, were dashed, for almost immediately on arrival the Battalion received fresh orders to move forward to Richebourg St Vaast, in which village Brigade headquarters were then operating. The exhaustion of all ranks on arrival was considerable as the Battalion had been almost continuously on the move in full marching order for about eighteen hours. Richebourg was a village of some importance and a considerable number of our heavy batteries supporting the Neuve Chapelle attack were stationed in its vicinity, with the result that it received a generous share of the enemy's counter-battery bombardment and also a good deal of attention due, apparently, to the prominence of its church tower, to the existence of which the Germans objected. Here at last the Battalion was allotted billets in which it remained until about 7 p.m., being under heavy shell fire the whole time and sustaining its first battle casualties of seven men wounded. The mist continued during the 12th and our main operation could not be pursued. The hostile shell fire increased in intensity, but the Germans were equally with ourselves embarrassed by the difficulties of accurate observation and their bombardments were not very disastrous to us. Local advances were attempted by our troops in various parts of the line and the houses at Pietre were actually reached by the Guards of the 20th Brigade, but the ground gained was heavily swept by hostile fire and could not be retained. All day counter-attacks in mass formation were attempted by the Germans, and costly as the day was to us, our casualties must have been far exceeded by theirs, their ranks being literally mown down by our rifle, machine-gun and shrapnel fire. By dusk the enemy's attempts had exhausted themselves and for the first time in the war the Germans gave up attempts to recapture ground they had lost.