simply packed with troops ready to go over the top at Zero.  Lewis’s 166 Brigade filled the trenches in front of us.  The 55th Division occupied a front from the west of Wieltje to Warwick Farm.  Half of this frontage was occupied by Lewis’s 166 Brigade on the left, and Boyd-Moss’s 165 Brigade occupied the other half on the right.  Stockwell’s 164 Brigade occupied the whole frontage in rear with the object of passing through the front brigades and penetrating into the enemy’s positions.  The 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers were the left front battalion of the 164 Brigade.  Colonel Hindle’s 1/4th North Lancashires were on the right.  We were supported by the Liverpool Irish as ’moppers up’; and the North Lancs. were supported by the 1/4th King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment in the same way.  In our battalion, D Company, commanded by Captain Bodington, were on the left front.  On their right were C Company, commanded by Captain Mordecai.  In rear of D Company were B Company commanded by Second-Lieutenant Talbot Dickinson, M.C.; and on our right were A Company commanded by Captain Briggs.  The front companies comprised the first two waves; the rear companies the third and fourth waves.  The first wave of D Company contained Beesley’s platoon on the left; and behind Beesley’s platoon was that of Telfer.  Then came Sergeant Brogden’s platoon of B Company, with Allen on his right.  My platoon occupied the whole Company front behind Brogden and Allen.  My orders were to advance to the ‘Green Line,’ and when I got there I was to take Lance-Corporal Tipping’s rifle section and four Lewis Gunners on to reinforce Allen at Aviatick Farm where he was to dig a strong point in front of the front-line when the Gravenstafel Ridge was reached.  Two of my sections were detached:  Corporal Livesey took his bombers with Brogden’s platoon to mop up a dug-out beyond Wurst Farm, and Lance-Corporal Heap was sent with his rifle grenadiers to 15 Platoon.  On my left was a platoon, commanded by Sergeant Whalley, of the 1/6th Cheshires.  They belonged to the 118th Brigade of the 39th Division of Maxse’s XVIII Corps—­so, you see, I was on the extreme left of Sir Herbert Watts’s XIX Corps.  It was Cuthbert’s 39th Division that was to take St. Julien.  We were to go through Fortuin and leave St. Julien just on our left.  On the right of our division was the 15th Division.  Behind us, in the Watou area, was Nugent’s 36th (Ulster) Division, ready to go through us in a day or two.  The 15th Division is entirely Scottish.  So much for Gough’s dispositions for the battle.

“Zero was fixed for 3.50 in the morning.  As the moment drew near how eagerly we awaited it!  At 3.50 exactly I heard a mine go up, felt a slight vibration, and, as I rushed out of the little dug-out in which I had been resting, every gun for miles burst forth.  What a sight!  What a row!  The early morning darkness was lit up by the flashes of thousands of guns, the air whistling and echoing with shells, the calm atmosphere shaken by a racket such