The gas was actually upon the men before they could distinguish the poison-clouds from the early morning haze that frequently hung over the lake. The first thick mantle of gas scattered the 18th Hussars somewhat, but enough of them remained in the trenches to hold on until a German machine-gun opened on them from their left rear. Seizing the advantage offered by the retirement of the 28th Division troops, the Huns came on as swiftly as the dispersing gas would allow, and soon were well behind the 18th line. MacLachlan, later in the day, tried to write a diary of what happened to him during the early morning hours, but it contained little detail. To piece together a coherent story of such events was difficult. "3.15 a.m., gassed out. 3.30, in again. 4.30, some York and Durham Light Infantry officers showed up. 5.15, twelve men left out of my sixty-one. 5.30, six men left. 6.30, 15th Hussars coming up." So ran the diary. The Germans poured around the Bellewaarde Lake on either side of it, and drove the few remaining 18th Hussars out of the trenches by an outflanking movement with sheer weight of numbers. The troopers retired across the Menin Road and trailed over the shell-swept fields toward Zillebeke, and then on to the southern edge of Ypres. While the trenches on the lakeside and around the Hooge Château were being torn from the grasp of the 18th Hussars, the 9th Lancers on the right, across the Menin Road, were fighting like mad. The gas so filled their trenches that at some points the troopers leaped on the parapets into the clearer air above, in full view of the advancing Huns, and poured a fire into the German ranks that dropped dozens of the enemy like shot rabbits. Captain Rex Benson, howling like a dervish to make his instructions audible above the din of battle, mounted a high bastion and so directed the stream of fire of his squadron that the oncoming rush in front of that trench was stemmed. A rifle-bullet smashed through Benson's arm and badly shattered the bone, but he held on in spite of his wounds until the first fierce Hun attack was repulsed. Major Beale-Browne, commanding the 9th Lancers, at once realised the danger to his left flank as the German bullets began to pour into it across the Menin Road. Down the south bank of the highway ran a communication trench, which Beale-Browne at once ordered to be transformed into a defence against a Hun attack from the position that had been won by the enemy from the 18th Hussars. A small infantry counter-attack to recover the lost ground at Hooge failed, though two companies of the Buffs got a foothold in some trenches north of the Menin Road, and not far from Hooge Château.