It took some time to get them all collected. I started down the communication trench. Ralston led the way and they went in sections, and I waited until everyone I could find had gone,--all except two wounded men whom I left in charge of a Sergeant and two stretcher-bearers, who brought them out in course of time.
It was about 5 a.m. when I reached the reserve trenches. There I found a Brigade message--this time a written one--waiting for me. It bore the hour 4.37 a.m. 16/6/15, and was as follows--'As many Officers and men of your Battalion as can be collected should be taken back to Le T----,[2] where arrangements are being made for food and rest A.A.A. As two Battalions are remaining as trench garrison, you should not crowd trenches by waiting A.A.A. As soon as small parties are collected they should start at once for Le T----.'[2]
The Doctor was still sitting in his dugout with the blood stains round about him, in the quiet calmness that has been his strength these days. What a night he had had, and what news of the fate of his friends he had had to: listen to in the midst of the strain of that night's work! The shells had not been few, and some had struck the back of his dug-out, but through it all his devotion to duty was beyond all praise.
He had a specially good word to say for the two stretcher-bearers Craig and Hannah, who had brought out Erskine Hill in the afternoon of the 15th. It had been specially difficult work. Sergeant Hillhouse of 'B' Company died beside the 'aid post,' and we buried him near by. By Companies we marched down the road towards Fes----[3] and the last was clear by 6 a.m.
I went back to the Brigade Headquarters and saw the General and some of his staff and told him as much as I had by this time been able to gather of what had happened in the attack.
The Battalion had done superbly! They did what was required of them; they took what they were told to take; and tried hard to hold it alone.... At last an order came to withdraw; it came from the right, but from whom no one knows. Then they came back--all that was left of them.
'A' Company who went over the parapet first have had the heaviest losses, Murray, Macdonald and Kennedy all killed, McLean's nerves completely shattered, and every Sergeant gone save Downie.
