At 2 o'clock the attack was launched under a heavy bombardment from all available British and French batteries, but such was the shortage of ammunition that this support died down for lack of supplies in about five minutes, after which the German batteries were free to search intensively the whole area of the Brigade advance, causing a good many casualties in the assaulting columns. From the line of assembly the ground subsided gently to a shallow depression running across the direction of advance, beyond which, at a distance of some 1000 yards from the crest on the La Brique side, the hill swelled to a second skyline which impeded further view. Just below the crest of the further spur an unfenced lane, Buffs Road, followed the contour running eastwards from Boundary Road. None of this land was intersected by trenches, the Allied trenches being several miles ahead and to the rear of the German positions. The 1/4th Londons moved from their position of waiting at about 2.30 p.m., and shaking out into four lines of platoons in file with B Company (Moore) on the left, and A (Duncan-Teape) on the right of the front line, followed by D (Saunders) and C (Clark). The German shrapnel was now searching both slopes of the spur pretty severely and men began to drop, but the Battalion steadily breasted the rise from which it could overlook the shallow valley towards Buffs Road. The sight which met their eyes defies description. The valley was covered with a ragged crowd of agonised and nerve-racked men, both Moroccans and Indians, who, having thrown down their arms and everything which could impede them, were streaming back from the front trenches suffering the tortures of poison gas. It was a revolting sight. The attack had clearly failed and our leading troops were broken and in retirement. But the men of the 1/4th Londons were splendid. Without wavering for a single instant they trudged steadily forward, though indeed almost completely exhausted, maintaining the intervals and distances between platoons with the precision of the parade ground. Never was there a more striking example of the results of training and discipline. The "attack in open warfare" which had been so roundly cursed by one and all in the days of training at Blendecques had indeed so sunk into the minds of everyone that instinctively the troops remembering only their orders to "follow the Connaughts at all costs" carried out under the most trying ordeal the lessons which had been drilled into them.