A slice of trench taken by the Huns on the 11th, and retaken by a British counter-attack that night, was rushed by the enemy on the morning of the 12th and captured, only to have another British counter-attack prepared for the evening. Thus the line of battle surged forward and backward day after day, each section of trench being fought over time and again with heavy losses to both sides.

Slowly the German circle was drawing closer to the stricken town. The second battle of Ypres was in full swing.

At lunch time General Allenby and his Chief of Staff were guests of our mess. It was a source of great satisfaction that the cavalry, on the threshold of one of the hardest struggles it had been called upon to face, should be under a Corps Commander who had so long been at its head as the G.O.C. of the Cavalry Corps. No man that I saw in the months I was with the British Expeditionary Force inspired more confidence in his leadership than Allenby.

General Meakin arrived from England, but decided that the command of the 1st Cavalry Brigade, to which he had been assigned, had best be left in the hands of "Tommy" Pitman until its turn in the front trenches was done. Pitman knew the ground and had a wonderful grasp of the situation, and to no other one man was due more of the credit for the holding of the line during the ensuing forty-eight hours.

On the night of the 12th, the tired infantry of the 28th Division was given relief from the firing-line, and before dawn the two and a half miles of front trenches, from the Canadian Farm, north of the Ypres-St. Julien Road, south to the western shore of the Bellewaard Lake, a few yards from the Ypres-Menin Road at Hooge, was manned by the dismounted troopers of the 1st and 3rd Cavalry Divisions.

The 2nd Cavalry Brigade held the extreme left of this stretch of cavalry line. The 18th Hussars were furthest north, the 4th Dragoon Guards in the centre, and the 9th Lancers on right. South of them were the three regiments of the 1st Cavalry Brigade—5th Dragoon Guards, 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays), and 11th Hussars. The 5th Dragoon Guards were on the left of the Queen's Bays, whose right rested on the Ypres-Zonnebeke Road near Verlorenhoek, a thousand yards from Potijze, where de Lisle so often took me each day. The 11th Hussars were in some trenches near the grounds of the Potijze Château, The 9th Cavalry Brigade was in dug-outs near Wieltje.

South of the Ypres-Zonnebeke Road came the 3rd Cavalry Division front; the 7th Brigade first, then the 6th Brigade, the 8th Brigade being in reserve.

Of the 7th Brigade, the 1st Life Guards formed the left, their trenches leading south from the Zonnebeke Road. One of their squadrons was in a reserve trench at the back of the line. Next on the right came the 2nd Life Guards, then the Leicestershire Yeomanry, whose right rested on the Ypres-Roulers Railway.

The 6th Brigade held the line from the railway to the Bellewarde Lake, the 3rd Dragoons on the left, the North Somerset Yeomanry on the right, and the 1st Royal Dragoons (Royals) in reserve a bit to the rear, and but a few yards north of the Menin road.

The 8th Brigade, in reserve, was composed of the Royal Horse Guards (Blues), the 10th Hussars, and the Essex Yeomanry.

Each cavalry regiment had a fighting strength of about 300 men. The 1st Division numbered some 2,400 rifles, and the 3rd Division roughly 2,700, say, just over 5,000 men for the two Divisions. An extra number of machine-guns made up for their comparatively small numerical strength.

The trench-line into which the troopers were thrown that night was in poor condition for defence. A foot of mud was the average bottom, and further attempts at digging only resulted in more water and mud. Parapets of sandbags and wire entanglements were sadly needed all along the line, and, at that, sandbag parapets were all too easily demolished by Hun shell-fire, which made short work of them.

A careful reconnaissance of the 3rd Cavalry Division trenches failed to reveal a stretch of 100 yards where more sandbags and more wire were not urgently required.