Early in the morning the 4th Battalion went to the Loos—Hulluch road, and remained there till the night of the 29th, but it was found that there were still the fifty men of the Battalion already mentioned on Hill 70, in addition to some thirty who had joined the 3rd Battalion in the 2nd Brigade. The machine-gun section, under Lieutenant Williams, also remained out on Hill 70, hoping that the attack would be renewed, when it could join in. Some Engineers had got out to them and erected barbed-wire entanglements partially across their front. Wounded men were continually crawling back to this little oasis in the desert of shell-holes. Painfully and slowly, inch by inch, these maimed men would arrive, often being sniped by the enemy. It was such an exposed spot that, beyond helping them into the shallow trench, the men in this party could do little.
About 8.30 that night Lieutenant Williams+ saw a party of Germans crawl out and advance toward some of our wounded who were unable to move. They appeared to be quite unaware of the handful of men in this trench. Feeling sure they intended to take the wounded prisoners, when their injuries would, no doubt, be dressed, he gave orders that no one was to fire. The Germans crept on slowly, but on reaching the wounded, to Lieutenant Williams' horror, they proceeded to bayonet them. It was hardly necessary for Lieutenant Williams to give the order to fire, as the men with the machine-guns had seen this dastardly act, and the two machine-guns soon wiped out the whole party of Germans. Our wounded men were finally rescued by the Scots Guards when they came up, and Lieutenant Williams retired with the machine-guns to Loos.
Meanwhile, Captain Morrison had succeeded in collecting the men who had been scattered in various parts of the line. They had all joined in the attack somewhere, although they received no instructions to do so. That night the Battalion marched back to Vermelles, and went into billets.
The casualties among the officers were: Lieut.-Colonel G. Hamilton and Lieutenant Shelley, gassed; Major the Hon. M. Ponsonby, Captain Thorne, Captain Sir George Houstoun-Boswall, Second Lieutenant A. Tompson, killed; Captain Aubrey Fletcher, Lieutenant P. Malcolm, Second Lieutenant M. Ridley, Lieutenant E. R. D. Hoare, Second Lieutenant Macmillan, wounded. The total casualties in other ranks amounted to 342.
The 1st Battalion
The officers of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards at this time were:
The 1st Battalion reached Vermelles on the Sunday with the rest of the 3rd Guards Brigade. On Monday it advanced towards Loos, and was placed in reserve, which meant being heavily shelled, without taking any active part in the fighting. It received orders to occupy the old German second-line trench on the outskirts of Loos, and Lieut.-Colonel G. Trotter left it there under Major de Crespigny while he went forward to Brigade Headquarters. The advance of the 3rd Guards Brigade into Loos under heavy shell-fire already referred to was described afterwards by a General as one of the most splendid and inspiring sights he had ever seen.
Major de Crespigny led the 1st Battalion to an old German trench just outside Loos, and ordered the men to put on gas helmets. Lieut.-Colonel Trotter, having been told to keep his battalion well under cover and to wait for further orders, returned to find that they had already carried out these instructions. The attack by the 4th Battalion Grenadiers and Welsh Guards started, but when General Heyworth found they could not capture and hold Hill 70 he decided to take up a line a little short of the crest of the hill and not to throw in the reserves. The 1st Battalion Grenadiers therefore remained just outside Loos, and in the evening sent up digging parties to assist the Royal Engineers.
All next day the 1st Battalion Grenadiers remained in this trench, where it was heavily shelled. The Germans of course knew the exact range of this trench, and were able to hit it with monotonous regularity, but the dug-outs were so craftily constructed that little damage was done. The danger lay in entering and coming out of these caves, and a certain number of men were killed in this way. All night digging parties were sent out to work on the lines in front. Marching in the dark through Loos was a hazardous proceeding, as the roads were a mass of shell-holes into which men frequently fell, and since the parties had to work in the open with the German trenches not very far off, their task was a perilous one. Flares were sent up, and if a man moved the Germans started firing at once. Nevertheless the Battalion got through a great deal of work, and barbed wire and sand-bags were taken up to the Scots Guards, who were now holding the line on Hill 70.
The 1st Battalion stayed in the same trenches next day, but the front line was by no means straight. This enabled the Germans to bring up a field-gun, with which they enfiladed the whole trench. When the shells first arrived down the trench from no one knew where, there were a great many men outside the dug-outs, and consequently many casualties. Major W. E. Nicol was hit in the head by a fragment of a shell, and died soon afterwards; Second Lieutenant Villiers had his jaw broken in two places, and Lieutenant Sir A. Napier was wounded in the thigh. The total casualties among other ranks were 45.
On the 30th the Battalion was relieved by a battalion of the 37th Brigade, and retired into billets at Sailly-la-Bourse.