Next morning, the thirtieth, we were very heavily bombarded, and the bombardment increased in violence towards midday, when we were ordered out of our trenches and to advance. We again moved up about a thousand yards, but there was still no sign of the enemy--shells were abundant. In front of a farm-house we dug in again, and then we began to see our troops retiring on the right. Two or three of the Welsh passing near, we inquired what was going on, when they replied: "It's hell. The Queen's are absolutely cut up"--which was true--what remained of them were sent down the line for garrison duties. We then began to expect a little excitement, but it did not come off that day; and we were once more ordered to return to the line we had left earlier. Next morning, the thirty-first, the Germans bombarded us more violently than ever. This continued for several hours. The next thing was that we saw the Germans coming; and they did come--in their thousands. We kept them off for an hour or two when the C.O. of the King's Royal Rifles consulted us, or rather our C.O., about retiring. I remember the two Officers having a heated argument over it, as they stood by a farm-house immediately in rear of the line. I do not, however, know what their argument was, but heard afterwards that the King's Royal Rifles had got short of ammunition. The words I did hear from our C.O. were: "It's the General's orders that we hold the position at all costs, and this I'll do if I lose the whole regiment." We continued to fire until the Germans were on our trenches and coming through the line the King's Royal Rifles had vacated on our left. I was in the third line of steps near the farm-house, where I overheard some of the conversation of the two C.O.'s. Just in front of the King's Royal Rifles' trenches was a huge German Officer waving with one hand to the retiring Rifles to surrender and with the other waving his troops on. It did not seem of much good for us few men to attempt to fight that dense mass of Germans, but we did; and out of the thousand, or thereabouts, that we lined up with a couple of nights before very few got away, the enemy taking somewhere about four hundred of my Regiment prisoners and our casualties being about the same number.