A wounded Canadian said the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Brigades in front of us were wiped out as a fighting force. Their trenches, he told us had been literally blown to bits. A counter-attack by the Canadians, the 13th Brigade and the French 45th Division on their left, had started well, but failed to achieve much. German batteries and machine guns greatly outnumbered ours and were taking heavy toll as the battle surged backwards and forwards. Before the day was over the French reported that they had recaptured Lizerne. Night closed with an increasing din from the arms of all sorts and calibres on our front, never to cease for the whole night through. I was sent after dark to G.H.Q. at St. Omer, a journey that meant many a long hour of tedious waiting in the midst of the tangled skein of traffic along the way. Returning at daybreak on Sunday, the 25th, I planned a round-about route from Steenvoorde to Poperinghe, circling well north of the main road. I had travelled but a few kilometres when I found the narrow, muddy road in front of me completely blocked by a train of French lorries, laden with troops. Some of the vehicles were mired, and the block bid fair to be immovable for hours. By sheer luck I stopped opposite a farmyard, in which I turned the car, and not far back gained a cross-road. A mile beyond the route was rendered absolutely impassable by two detachments of British transport, which had met face to face on a road barely wide enough for one. "We have been here a divil of a toime," said a cheery Irish driver at the rear of the column, "and from the look of it beyant there, we'll be slapin' here in the mud this night." Nothing daunted, I turned, pushed by willing hands when deep mud made assistance necessary, and headed the other way. But fate was unkind. Again I found the road barricaded, this time by two signal lorries that had, like me, tried a _détour_. One had skidded sideways and stuck fast. The other was trying to pull his fellow back on to the roadway. Disheartened, I soon tired of what threatened to be a long wait, and returned toward Steenvoorde. A new convoy of French troop-lorries closed this avenue of escape, but after an hour of floundering through almost impassable lanes, I reached Abele, on the main road, and was soon thereafter in Poperinghe. Truly an ounce of prevention in the way of road organisation and route selection by some competent authority would have been worth many pounds of the condemnation poured forth with volubility by all road users in those days of tiresome traffic tangles. Our headquarters moved to an _estaminet_ just outside Woesten. I learned, on arrival, that at midnight word had come from the French Commander, General Putz, whose headquarters were but a few hundred yards distant, to the effect that a mistake had been made in a previous report, and Lizerne was still in the hands of the enemy.