"In the action of the 23rd of October, 1914, the 2nd Infantry Brigade (less the 2nd Royal Sussex Regiment left at Boesinghe) was allotted the task of reinforcing the 1st Infantry Brigade and retaking the trenches along the Bipschoote-Langemarck Road, which had been occupied by the enemy. In spite of the stubborn resistance offered by the German troops, the object of the engagement was accomplished, but not without many casualties in the Brigade. "By nightfall the trenches previously captured by the Germans had been reoccupied, about 500 prisoners captured, and fully 1,500 German dead were lying out in front of our trenches. "The Brigadier-General congratulates the 1st Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, Northampton Regiment, and the 2nd K.R.R.C. (King's Royal Rifle Corps), but desires specially to commend the fine soldier-like spirit of the 1st Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, which, advancing steadily under heavy shell and rifle fire, and aided by machine-guns, was enabled to form up within a comparatively short distance of the enemy's trenches. Fixing bayonets, the battalion then charged, carried the trenches, and occupied them; and to them must be allotted the majority of the prisoners captured. The Brigadier-General congratulates himself on having in his Brigade a battalion which, after marching the whole of the previous night without food or rest, was able to maintain its splendid record in the past by the determination and self-sacrifice displayed in this action. "The Brigadier-General has received special telegrams of congratulations from both the G.O.C.-in-Chief, 1st Corps, and the G.O.C., 1st Division, and he hopes that in the next engagement in which the Brigade takes part the high reputation which the Brigade already holds may be further added to. "(_Signed_) B. PAKENHAM, CAPTAIN, "Brigade Major 2nd Infantry Brigade." On October 26th, 1914, we left our billets on the Melin Road, and proceeded further up, halting about halfway between Ypres and Hooge, called then by us the "black and white village." There we were placed in a field, and, once more lining the hedges, we stopped there the rest of the day. A regrettable incident took place towards evening: one of our own aeroplanes was brought down by our own fire, under the impression that it was an enemy. It caught fire five hundred yards up, and burned furiously: both men, pilot and observer, were killed. The following morning, October the twenty-seventh, we filed out of these fields, and, passing through Hooge, continued up the road as far as a large wood on the left of the road and about three miles from Ypres town. At the north end of this wood were some batteries of artillery behind a large château, and in this wood we dug lines of trenches with entrenching tools.