There was a dripping thick mist nearly all day, and we pushed on under its cover—the Bedfords into Givenchy (losing poor Rendall, killed by the retiring Germans), and the Norfolks into Rue d'Ouvert and St Roch, whilst the Devons, ordered to make the footbridge to Canteleux road "good," pushed on in the afternoon. But it got so absolutely pitch-dark that it was impossible to make a cohesive advance; so after getting close to the footbridge and coming under a heavy fire thence, the Devons fell back again, all the more justified since Canteleux was reported still occupied by the enemy on their left flank. A vast amount of staff work all day. We returned to the Festubert pothouse in the evening.
Oct. 17th.
The first question was, Was Canteleux occupied by the enemy? Preparations were made to shell it at 6 A.M., but figures were seen strolling about there which did not look very German. Shortly afterwards the Norfolks reported that they had about sixty men in it who had penetrated thither during the night. The Bedfords at first were still convinced that the men in Canteleux were German, but we disabused them as soon as we heard the truth for certain, and for a change shelled some farms to our front whence hostile machine-gun fire was proceeding, setting one on fire.
In the afternoon we were ordered to advance to the line: bridge—Canteleux—Violaines; and again the Devons pushed on, slowly, in connection with the French, but were again obliged to retire from the vicinity of the bridge by heavy fire, and took up their position in the advanced position that the Dorsets had occupied on the 13th.
The Cheshires, under the three gallant captains, Shore, Mahony, and Rich, meanwhile worked well forward and reported their arrival at Violaines at 4 P.M., having reached it viâ Rue du Marais.
A desperate amount of work again, 5 A.M. to 11 P.M. I only got out of the pothouse for twenty minutes all day, and that was at 5 P.M.
Thus we had pushed forward some way on our line by the evening, and the 14th Brigade was in touch with the Cheshires and moving slowly forward—but very slowly.
Oct. 18th.
Next day the usual "general advance" was ordered for 6 A.M., and the artillery loosed off a lot of shells on to where we thought the enemy were. But it was really quite useless our advancing on the right unless the French did also, for the Germans held the south bank of the Canal in front of the latter, and any advance by us merely exposed our right flank to a terrible enfilade fire.
Major-General Morland, who had succeeded Sir C. Fergusson in command of the Division, now turned up, and to him I explained these things. The Railway Triangle was the worst place, for it was heavily held by Germans, who had dug themselves in behind stockades of rails and trucks and defied even our howitzers; but it was difficult, very difficult, for the latter to make good practice at them here, as the country was so flat, yet so cut up with high trees and fences that it was almost impossible to get an observing station or to see what one was firing at.