It was now broad daylight and, of course, futile to order this attack to recommence. The officers commanding units on the spot decided that with the situation as it was known to them any further attempt, while the enemy was in undisturbed occupation of the vicinity of Cour d’Avoué, offered no chance of success, and would only have led to greatly enhanced losses, and that withdrawal before it became too late was the best course to pursue. It would, perhaps, have been better to have ordered the attack at an earlier hour of the night, even though the Germans would probably have been found more on the alert than they were. The casualties in this assault were heavy: nine companies were engaged, in which sixteen British officers, two Indian officers, 137 British other ranks, and 173 Indian other ranks were returned as casualties. Although the British Division on our right had, like ourselves, been unable to make any advance during the early days of these prolonged attacks, there is no doubt that once they got a forward move on, they were severely handicapped by the inability of the Indian Corps to keep up with them, and the left battalion of that Division in consequence could not keep in touch with those farther to the right. The situation, in fact, closely resembled that of our left Brigade at Neuve Chapelle, where we originally reached as far as the Bois du Biez but were obliged to again move back owing to the British Brigade of the Eighth Division on our immediate left finding it impossible to overcome the German defence to its front. In the case now under review, we did all in our power to keep up with the advance, but the strong point V 6 baffled our efforts. It might possibly have been better if the dividing line between the British and Indian Corps had not run just past this redoubt, but that is a matter of opinion only. Be that as it may, it must be owned that notwithstanding many gallant attempts we could not get on at all, and thus hampered the later attacks of the British Division after it had captured its first objective. CHAPTER XXI If for no other reason than for the sake of being alive to read the monumental history of Armageddon, I wish I were young again. How atomic appears one’s own humble share in the great conflict. To Britishers who looked on manœuvres at Aldershot or Salisbury Plain as something to record, as Napoleonic military feats of arms which were an insurance against all aggression, how different do matters now appear. “The Contemptible Little Army” of those days is no more, but even so, it will ever remain the lodestar for the armies to come, and the historian of the five years’ clash of the world’s arms will have material to work on such as never fell to the lot of man. What an opportunity for still closer welding together the divers races and peoples that combine to make the Empire of Great Britain.