At 11 a.m. on the day of arrival at Bethune the battalion formed up and Colonel Romer addressed his men. “I am not going to make a speech to you,” he said, “but only to ask you to remember that you are ‘The Buffs.’” The battalion then moved forward towards the fighting line, gradually approaching Vermelles. That very night it had orders for a night attack on Hulluch, which was, however, stopped in order to allow of artillery preparation. The first casualty occurred at this time: 2nd Lieut. Hon. H. E. J. Robinson was so badly hit that he died next day in hospital. The attack being thus postponed, the battalion got into what were the original German second-line trenches and remained there till 11 a.m. on the 26th.
At 10.30 a.m. orders came for the division to attack at 11, and then this unit of the regiment went “over the top” to take its part in a severe action only three weeks after arrival in France and without having gone through the apprenticeship and instruction under fire in the trenches, which was the rule in all cases of fresh troops arriving in the country.
The brigade, in which our battalion was a unit, advanced from the approach-trenches, which had been German and which it was then holding, to the objective, which was the third line of the German fortification running north from a point about a thousand yards east of Hulluch, which place the 1st Division was to attack simultaneously, while on the right the 21st Division had another portion of the enemy’s third line assigned to it.
The 8th Buffs were in the second line, following the 9th East Surrey, who were on the brigade right in touch with the above-named division. On the left of the Surreys were the 8th Royal West Kent, with the 8th Queen’s behind them.
There was a steady and persistent shelling on all these battalions as they advanced, and when our men got down to the depression running south of Hulluch they came under enfilade fire from several guns and machine guns, and the further they advanced up the eastern slope the more severe became the fire. All the battalions of the 72nd Brigade reached the trenches which were their objective. There they found the wire entanglement still quite intact, the wire being abnormally thick and difficult to cut. Endeavours were made to get over or under this obstacle, but to no purpose. Meanwhile the division on the right retired, leaving our people to be heavily enfiladed, with the result that the latter also had to fall back, which they did to some trenches five or six hundred yards to the west and south-west of Hulluch, and there, for four and a half hours, they were heavily bombarded.
When night came on parties were sent out to remove the killed and wounded, but the Germans after dark reoccupied their old trenches along the Hulluch-Lens road and the rescue parties therefore failed to get at the eastern slope of the shallow valley, in which Hulluch lies: the fatal slope on which the greater number of our casualties occurred. Only a dozen or so of the more lightly wounded of the Buffs managed to crawl back after nightfall.
This assault was made in daylight and over open country, and the German third-line trench which was the objective was nearly a mile away.
The men had started in what is termed artillery formation, but the lines, owing to the intensity of the fire encountered, had to be extended almost at once. The advance was carried forward very rapidly, and in half an hour the Buffs had arrived within twenty-five yards of the enemy’s wire.
No gaps could be observed, and for twenty minutes the attempts to cut it were continued without avail.
It was at 11.55 that an order came to withdraw, and from that moment the hostile fire, especially from the left flank, became hotter than ever and, of course, the casualties heavier. The Buffs—what was left of them—were relieved during the night of the 26th/27th and rested in a field close by Sailly la Bourse, remaining till 7 p.m. on the latter date, when they marched to Nœux les Mines and bivouacked in very wet weather.