As soon as our men got out of their trenches they were met by a terrific machine-gun and rifle fire at close quarters, whilst the German heavy guns in the rear spouted a continual torrent of shells over the fields through which the assault was delivered. Our men dropped left and right, but they never wavered, and the Irish Fusiliers and the Dublins, Irishmen all, fighting shoulder to shoulder, actually got into the outskirts of St. Julien. The scattered ruins, the maze of trenches, and the barbed wire strung out everywhere, seriously delayed these two battalions and checked our advance. Two battalions of a brigade of the Northumberland Division, supporting the Dublins, lost their direction. These men had only been a few days in France, and were advancing over country which was totally unknown to their officers and themselves. On the left the Warwicks and on the other flank the Highlanders got to within 70 yards of the German trenches in front of the wood. Here they were hung up, and could make no further progress. They dug in, and were “properly hammered,” in the words of one who was there, by German high-explosive shells. Nevertheless, by this gallant attack, the gap between the Canadians east of St. Julien and north of Fortuin was filled. The next day another attack on St. Julien was delivered, but also without success. General Riddell, commanding the Northumberland Brigade of the Northumbrian Division, received a pressing order from the Canadians to attack with the Lahore Division and a battalion of General Hull’s Brigade. There had been no time to reconnoitre. It was for this brigade a “boost in the dark,” but the urgency of the crisis admitted of no delay. So our men went forward again, three battalions of the Northumberland Fusiliers and the Indians, straight into an inferno of shell and rifle fire. All through the afternoon they struggled on under a terrific bombardment, the worst that the battle had brought forth up to that time. At half-past three the gallant Riddell was killed by a bullet as he was going up to see for himself the position of his battalions, who had dug themselves in 200 yards away from St. Julien.