Throughout this day the Dehra Dun Brigade had been subjected to constant shell-fire and suffered considerably. Whilst this delay was being caused, some platoons of the 4th Seaforths rose up and doubled forward, and in doing so had to pass through a heavy machine-gun fire, but nothing ever dismayed that gallant Corps, which was reported by the Brigadier as advancing during the battle “with a confidence and self-reliance that left little to be desired.” The C.O., Lieut.-Colonel MacFarlane, and the Second in Command, Major Cuthbert, were both severely wounded. I can see them now as I first saw them in France: two gallant gentlemen who at once gave me the impression of being real “cool-headed Scots,” who would enjoy nothing more than a tough scrap with a good few Boches. I will revert to the Bareilly Brigade, which, as already narrated, was holding our original front trenches, and had divided their line into two sub-sections. Before the opening of the battle, advanced picquets had been withdrawn and all houses in the Rue du Bois evacuated, in case they should be shelled by the enemy. The main line of defences had been fully manned, and Brigade reserves were in position by 4 A.M. on the morning of 10th March. Port Arthur was evacuated by the garrison for the period of our obstacle and wire-cutting bombardment, but rifle and machine-gun fire was maintained. A German aeroplane which had made an early trip over our lines had spotted the gathering of troops, and shortly after a rain of shells was poured into the redoubt, and caused many casualties. The Leicesters and 1/39th suffered somewhat severely, and the 2nd Black Watch also had over thirty. Communication trenches to connect our own line with the captured German works had been pushed forward, and three companies of the 4th Black Watch moved up to take over the _points d’appui_ which were being established. Shortly afterwards this battalion was withdrawn, but it reads strangely, in the light of after events, that “it was found difficult to keep proper communication with this unit as it had no telephone equipment.” I must digress a moment. “No telephone equipment!” Think of it, those who later on fought so bravely but under what different conditions. The Indian battalions at least had their ordinary equipment, though at first on a very meagre scale, and if we owed nothing else to the parsimony of the Indian Government in connection with all things militant, we nevertheless owed them one debt of gratitude, and that was, that perhaps of all the troops in the field in France during the winter of 1914–15, the Indian Corps felt least the lack of necessaries, simply because it never realised that a shortage existed; for when things were at their very lowest ebb they still were in excess of anything we had been accustomed to in India, even in our palmiest and most festal Durbar days.