The infantry were still more exhausted and a further advance was impossible. The night was spent by Tank crews and infantry in resting, and by the Staff in planning a renewed attack for the next day.
A letter home from a Tank officer describes a typical scene:
“We had captured the village of Havrincourt that morning, or rather its ruins, and it was in the one remaining room of the once magnificent Château that General John Ponsonby, commanding the 40th Division, established his Headquarters and convened a conference for ten o’clock in the evening.
“The road thither had already been sufficiently restored to permit of cars getting through, granted skilful driving and good luck.
“Felled trees, wire, breastworks, and other barriers had been cleared aside, trenches and craters on both sides of No Man’s Land had been roughly filled in, whilst the notorious ‘Grand Ravine’ had been made passable for carriage folk by the judicious placing of a few fascines.
“There were a round dozen of us at the conference, a muddy, rather blear-eyed party, some in tin hats and trench coats, revolver girt—some in honorific red and gold—all with slung gas-masks.
“General Ponsonby and his G.S.O.I. sat on an old packing-case with a map spread out before them on another, lit by the dancing flicker of two guttering candles stuck into German beer bottles. General Elles and Colonel Baker-Carr were there with a chorus of Commanding Officers, Company Commanders and Reconnaissance Officers from the 1st Tank Brigade.
“An armed sentry stood at the breach in the wall that served for doorway—signallers and orderlies entered and left the little circle of yellow light, stirring up the dust from the fallen débris on the broken floor.
“One felt uneasily conscious of forming part of a Graphic picture entitled ‘Advanced Headquarters,’ or ‘Planning the Battle.’
“Anyway, the battle was eventually planned and to the satisfaction of all parties present. The G.S.O.I. finished writing his operation orders for the morning’s attack, the conference dissolved, and we stumbled out once more into the night, each of us with some job to get done before the dawn.