moved forward to their assembly positions.  Meanwhile Battalion Headquarters moved into the farm house already occupied by the 4th Battalion.  In the cellar we found, in addition to the usual Headquarter Officers, a French Interpreter, and part of a French Liaison platoon, no air, very little light, but plenty of tobacco smoke.  Soon after we arrived a message from Brigade told us that the Cyclists had met with no enemy as far as Regnicourt, but had found a patrol of about twenty in that village and had been fired on by them.  We were discussing this, when suddenly there was a scuffling overhead and we were told that there was “something ticking somewhere,” and that everyone had left the house.  The cellar occupants were not slow to follow, and thinking of time-bombs and infernal machines managed to empty the cellar in a record time.  We settled down uncomfortably under a hedge, and prepared to read and write orders with a concealed electric torch—­the maximum of discomfort.  However, we did not have to stay there long, as a runner came to tell us that the origin of the “ticking” had now been discovered, and, as it was nothing more formidable than the recently wound up dining room clock, we returned to the cellar.  Major Dyer Bennet, arguing that, if the Cyclists could get as far as Regnicourt, we should reach our objective without difficulty, decided that the attack should be carried out as arranged, and, sending the Adjutant to find the 6th Division, moved up himself to the Aisonville Road, leaving only the Aid Post and some Signallers and servants at the Farm.

[Illustration:  The Cadre at Loughborough, June, 1919.]

The Aisonville Road ran almost due N. and South along a valley; between it and the edge of the Bois de Riquerval was open ground for about 300 yards sloping gently up to the wood.  A small cottage marked the start of “A” Company’s “ride,” and the stretch of road immediately N. of this was deeply sunken.  Here “A” Company formed up and tried to find the French who were considerably further South than we expected.  Incidentally they were not as far forward as we were, and the Boche enfiladed the road about midnight with a whizz-bang battery from the South.  “B” Company formed up in an isolated copse about 100 yards East of the road into which the 4th Battalion had made their way during the afternoon.  The left half Battalion remained along the road bank and in a dry ditch 50 yards W. of it, near to the junction with the Regnicourt Road up which they were to advance.  There was one solitary house, protected by the hillside, which provided Company Headquarters with a certain amount of cover.  The night was dark and the enemy, except for the whizz-bangs on “A” Company, very quiet.