Читать книгу The War History of the 1st/ 4th Battalion, 1914-1918. The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment онлайн

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Red screens were used to show the furthermost points reached by the infantry, to enable the artillery to support. The bombing parties carried red flags, and a red rocket was to be fired when the infantry reached the houses on the road at L 11. (The artillery had set these houses on fire, and they afforded a good landmark.) But the artillery observers could see nothing because of the tremendous smoke and dust cloud, which hid the whole area from their view. All telephone communication was very soon smashed up, and messages had to be sent by relays of orderlies. Lieutenant Ord at L 8 was in charge of this.

The course of the battle becomes a little obscure. The next supporting Company was B, but Captain Peak, for some time reported missing, has lately been reported dead, and there is no connected account of what actually happened to this Company. At this period the German artillery redoubled in intensity on the deploying Companies, and whereas C Company had suffered chiefly from rifle and machine gun fire, B and D and A Companies suffered from shrapnel and high explosive. B Company seems to have reinforced C Company on the right. B Company men say they had to cross a deep ditch with barbed wire entanglements at the bottom. (This must have been the ditch marked in front of the German fire trench at Z 1). Here, they say, Captain Peak was killed on the barbed wire in front of the trench.