sights at our advancing line. This obstacle was finally dealt with by a party of Lewis gunners, who worked round to a flank and put the guns out of action. The battalion, with the exception of a small composite party of 1/6th North Staffords and Sherwood Foresters, now side-slipped to the right considerably and, as mentioned above, the support battalion was pushed in to fill the gap thus created.
Meanwhile, this small party of thirty-two men—twenty of the Staffords and twelve Sherwoods—pressed on towards Doon Mill, which the enemy held in force and from which he poured a galling fire on the left of the 137th Brigade and the right of the 139th Brigade. They were, however, unable to reach their objective, and, finding themselves out of touch with all other British troops, they were obliged to return to Neville's Cross and the road running south from this point. Here, they maintained their positions for two hours under enfilade machine-gun fire from Mannequin Hill, which finally forced a retirement to a line running approximately north and south, about 1,000 yards south-east of Ramicourt.
Thus, the 137th Infantry Brigade also gained its main objectives to time, but, in order to do so, had absorbed all reserve troops into the fighting line and was subsequently obliged to fall back considerably, owing to heavy enemy fire from the dominating ridges along its front. There appears to have been no organized counter-attack on this portion of the front until late in the day, but the enemy fought stoutly and isolated posts, strongly held, prevented our line being established on the crest of Mannequin Hill and at Doon Mill as was intended, those parties of our Infantry who did get forward being subjected to enfilade fire and exposed to the danger of being cut off. The open nature of the country, in fact, enabled
