Here the troops of the Royal Naval Division suffered badly, but they continued to advance under the withering fire, winning the first and second line trenches, and then, as supports came up on the right, braving the machine-gun fire, they pushed on across the dip and sunken road up the slope toward Beaucourt. Here all the troops made a junction, forming a line on the Beaucourt-Beaumont-Hamel road. Back of this line the Germans still held the central parts of the trenches, over the two ends of which the British troops had swept. The redoubt still remained intact and other important positions were in German hands.
On the night of the 13th the British battalion commander who had been wounded during the advance gathered together 600 men, all that could be spared, from established positions, and with these troops he purposed to attempt a farther advance. It was while he was gathering these men together that the officer received a second wound, but still refused to retire from the field.
At early dawn of November 14, 1916, this officer led his 600 men against the village of Beaucourt. In less than a quarter of an hour's hand-to-hand fighting the British troops had won the village. When the sun shone on the scene of the struggle the British troops were digging themselves in on the farther side of Beaucourt. It was only then that the brave battalion commander who had successfully led the attack with four wounds in his body had to be taken to the rear.