the two British divisions. This was an awkward junction, which caused trouble later. Four objectives were laid down. The first was the nearest German system of trenches, which had lain under searching artillery-fire for some time, and would not be difficult; the second, six hundred yards farther on, ran parallel to the Pilckem road; the third an imaginary line a hundred yards beyond the well-known Iron Cross Kortikaar-Cabaret road, beyond Pilckem Ridge, and the last went up to the Steenbeek River. The total depth of the run was about two miles from the canal bank.
The 2nd (Ponsonby's) and the 3rd (Seymour's) Brigades were to take the first three objectives, after which the 1st (Jeffreys's Brigade), following close behind, was to come through and take the fourth. The 2nd Brigade, which was on the right of the division, held the front from the Ypres-Staden railway-bridge over the canal to Boesinghe Bridge. The 3rd Brigade continued the line to the left for six hundred yards. The 1st Brigade, less the 1st Irish and the 3rd Coldstream, which were under the direct orders of General Feilding, G.O.C. Guards Division, was in reserve.
Our barrages, conceived on a most generous scale, were timed to creep at a hundred yards in four minutes. They were put down at 3.50 A. M., July 31, a dark, misty morning on the edge of rain, and the whole attack went forward with satisfying precision so far as the Guards Division was concerned. The various objectives were reached at the given times, and level with the French advance. By eleven o'clock the farthest was in our hands, and what difficulties there were arose from the division on the Guards' right being held up among unreduced blockhouses enfilading them from the railway line.
Meantime, the 1st Battalion Irish Guards spent the day, after breakfast at a quarter-past five, in reserve round the little two-roomed, sand-bagged and concreted Chasseur farm, where there was an apple-tree with all its leaves on; under half an hour's notice to move up if required. But no order came. They were shelled in-
