The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 | Page 9

which were to be assaulted by the 155th Brigade, only a few guns being directed at the position on our immediate front; its turn was to come later.
At 7.30 our artillery fire ceased with startling suddenness. The hour for the attack had arrived, and the guns were now to be switched on to the Turkish artillery and reserves to prevent these giving any effective assistance to the troops defending the trenches. A minute or two later distant cheering and the sharp rattle of musketry were heard mingling with the roar of the Turkish guns. The 155th had gone in.
An hour or two elapsed before any news of their fortunes reached us; an hour or two during which the guns thundered almost as vigorously as ever and the rifle-fire came and went in bursts. Then things began to quieten down and tidings sped along the lines that the attack had succeeded: the French had gained some ground on their extreme right, and the 155th had secured their objective.
Soon, however, this good news was robbed of some of its gladness by a rumour that at least one of the K.O.S.B. battalions had been badly cut up--that they had gone too far and had been unable to return; what had become of them no one seemed to know. It was several days before we heard what had actually happened. The 4th K.O.S.B. had been ordered to take three lines of trenches which were shown on the maps issued for the attack. Two lines were rushed without much difficulty; but there was no third line to take!--at least not where the third line appeared on the maps. The map had been prepared from photographs taken from aeroplanes, and in these photographs there appeared as a trench what proved to be, in reality, only a shallow ditch or sunken pathway. Photography, we are told, cannot lie; evidently it may at times mislead.
When the attacking battalion reached this ditch they did not recognise it as their furthest objective and went right on, seeking the non-existent third trench, until they came into the area which the French artillery were shelling to prevent the forward movement of the Turkish reserves. It was long hours before they were able to fall back on the captured trenches, and then only after terrible losses.
Towards 2.30 p.m. a message reached us that the attack by our Brigade might be delivered earlier than the appointed time and that we were to be prepared to move. Orders had previously been received that companies were not to go into action with more than four officers and that each was to leave twenty-five men with Battalion Headquarters.
The artillery preparation for the afternoon attack was a repetition of the morning bombardment, but as fire was now almost entirely concentrated on the trenches in front of our Brigade, we were able to form a better conception of its effects. The destruction was enormous. Parapets and trenches were scattered in clouds of dust which soon became so dense as to blot out the entire landscape from our sight. The impression was that of a huge black cloud resting on the ground, a cloud incessantly rent and illumined by the red flashes of the bursting shells. Nothing, it seemed, could live under such smashing fire. In actual fact, as we saw for ourselves after the position had been taken, the enemy's casualties from it were appalling. The morale of the survivors must have been terribly shaken. The marvel is that, after such an experience, they were able to put up so stout a resistance as they did at many points.
The attack of the 157th Brigade was launched about 5 p.m. Over the parapet of Oxford Street we watched the 6th H.L.I. advancing in successive lines on our left flank. Nothing could have been finer than the steadiness with which line after line pushed on through the enemy's bursting shrapnel, until each in turn was hidden from view in the inferno of smoke and dust which screened the trenches.
Meanwhile the 5th A. & S.H. and the 7th H.L.I. were pressing forward on our front and right respectively, but of their movements practically nothing could be observed by us. "C" Company moved up into Trotman Road as soon as the attack had passed clear of it and--as we learned by a message from Major Downie received two hours later--half of "A" Company had been advanced into Nelson Avenue in close support of the 6th H.L.I.
At 6.20 a message arrived from the Brigade that the 7th H.L.I. had secured their objective and that we were to send fifty men with picks and shovels to assist in consolidating their front line. These we supplied from "D" Company in reserve, with instructions to get the tools from "B" and "C" Companies as they passed through.
After