Information is scanty and contradictory, but "at half-hourly intervals the situation, as we believed it to be, was telephoned to our Divisional Headquarters and to the brigades on either flank." Reports come in of success at certain places and a check at others; also of a German counter-attack.

All reports agree that casualties have been heavy.

The ravine, indeed, has been taken with seven hundred prisoners, but the situation is still so obscure that "the Brigadier sent me out to find out the real situation." "So I started out with an orderly." The direct route to be taken was under fire and had to be circumvented.

"I was making for an old dug-out in a small ravine, where some men of our left attacking battalion had suffered heavily whilst assembling prior to the attack.
The area was still being shelled, and we made a bolt for the dug-out, which we reached safely." In the dug-out is the commander of the support battalion, who reports that the commanders of the attacking battalions have gone forward to the big ravine.

"I found out all I could from him, and then went forward with him to the ravine." On the way the Staff officer notices that the wire entanglements in front of the German trenches are still formidable and have not been properly cut by our artillery.