the Battalion. Everyone of the Headquarters personnel present will
remember the Advanced Headquarters being blown up and the signallers and
runners sustaining many casualties. During the same evening two companies
of another unit came to the trench occupied by Headquarters. They tried to
enter the trench at the same spot and crowded close on each other. At this
time the enemy suddenly dropped four 5.9 shells among the crowded men.
Next morning forty-seven dead were counted.

The next day the Battalion was relieved, and by small stages the remnants
of the companies made their way to Buire-sur-Ancre. This was the
Battalion's last time in action on the Somme, and it presented a very
changed aspect to its first arrival on this battlefield. Companies were
reduced to the size of platoons, and platoons to sections or less. During
the battle about 650 casualties had been sustained, including fifteen
officers dead. This was a large incision into the fighting strength, and
it was a long time before these losses were made up.

For the Battalion the Somme Battle with its terrible holocausts, incessant
shell fire and continuous slaughter, was at an end, but there was no
respite for the weary soldier. There was to be no rest or period for
recuperation. The Regiment was ordered to Ypres immediately. Tired and
exhausted, the men were taken out of the Somme inferno, having lost many
of their comrades, and with weary bodies and heavy hearts they faced the
prospect of the untold terrors of the fatal city of Ypres.

The journey to Ypres was long. First the Battalion entrained at Méricourt
in the afternoon of Sunday the 1st October. At midnight the men detrained
at Longpré and marched to Cocquerel, arriving at 3 a.m. the next day. The
men then bivouacked until reveille at 6-30 a.m. At 8-30 a.m. the Regiment
was again on the march to Pont Remy, where it entrained for Esquelbecq,