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 general instructions to follow their own units by the light of nature; and there the orders stopped. Naturally, as the roads boiled with traffic, all transport was promptly stood aside to let troops get ahead, with the result that after many adventures in the dark, including the collapse of a bridge over the Canal du Nord when half the loads had crossed, the Battalion's transport got into Ribecourt at five in the morning, still without any orders, found that no one knew where Brigade Headquarters might be, billeted themselves in a wrecked farm and managed to get into touch with their Battalion in the afternoon of the 24th. About this time, the Fortieth Division with the tanks attacked Bourlon village, captured the whole of it, only to be fought out by the enemy on the following day. The Wood had not at that time gained its dark name in history. All that the waiting Battalion at Cantaing reports on the 25th November, while wood and village fumed like the infernos that they were, is "no fighting on the battalion front, although there was heavy fighting on the left."

It broke out again on the 26th towards evening (the fifth day of continuous battle), when the 4th Grenadiers of the 3rd Guards Brigade were sent up to support the Fortieth Division and, on the way thither, went through a heavy German barrage as though they were on parade.

But the high ground above Bourlon Wood and Fontaine-Notre-Dame gave the enemy an artillery and observation command which enabled them to sweep our front and back areas in the northern half of the salient almost as they chose. Pressure, too, was beginning to develop on the flanks. The forty-eight hours in which the enemy could bring up fresh troops had grown to nearly a week, and they had used every hour of it. In no way could the situation be called healthy, but were the Bourlon Ridges won, at least our gain of ground might be held. So it was decided that the 2nd Guards Brigade, 3rd Grenadiers, 1st Coldstream, 2nd Irish Guards and 1st Scots Guards, together with the 4th