Of the 4 companies of 2nd Otago, the 2 on the right had a difficult manoeuvre to perform, first advancing to their front for about 200 yards, and then executing a double change of direction towards the right. This was carried out, however, in cohesion and order, despite the fire of machine guns, which at once began to play as they moved up the slope. By the time they reached the crest, all the officers and a large proportion of the men in these 2 right companies had fallen. The survivors reached and cleared their sector of Circus Trench, but lacking the guiding control of their officers, pressed on further, overrunning their objective, and moved right up to the protective barrage. It was not till the 2nd Wellington supporting company arrived that the gap thus caused on the Otago right, and further accentuated by the Canterbury casualties, was filled. Capt. L. H. Jardine, who commanded the Wellington company and who had already shown himself possessed of rare soldierly qualities, quickly grasped the situation and disposed his men in little groups to hold the line. The remnants of the Otago companies and a Wellington Lewis gun section, which had followed them, were recalled to the proper objective, and Jardine assumed command of the whole line at this part of the front.

Among the gunners of this Wellington section was Pte. K. D. Barr. He had injured his foot previously, and on the morning of the battle it was painful and swollen, so that he could not wear a boot. It was characteristic of the spirit which imbued the New Zealanders at the end of 2 weeks of fighting, that despite intense discomfort nothing would induce him to stay out of the engagement. He wrapped a sandbag round his foot and limped over the top with his comrades. By a caprice of fortune they had all been killed or wounded, and now it was left to him to carry back the precious gun to Jardine's line.

Lower down the hill and consequently more sheltered than their companions on the right from the Gird machine guns, the Otago left companies attacked the branch of Circus Trench which led to the Abbey Road. As the storming line pressed nearer, they were at one point checked by a machine gun. The same Sergeant Brown whose exploits in the Crest and Switch on 15th September have been noted,{58} once again similarly saved the situation. Single-handed he rushed at the gun and bayoneted the crew. The checked line of skirmishers at once poured breathlessly into the trench. The garrison were killed or fled. Many of them fell victims to the fire of Lewis guns supported on strong and willing shoulders, others to Otago markmanship with the rifle. It was while sniping coolly at the flying enemy that the heroic Sergeant Brown was killed by long-range machine gun fire. His magnificent conduct throughout the Somme battle and superb daring on all occasions, when unhesitating readiness for self-sacrifice could alone overcome resistance, won the dead soldier the first Victoria Cross which the Division received in France.

In the dense smoke and dust the Otago left had lost touch with the sorely reduced companies on the right, but they advanced, meeting now less opposition, towards their final objective. At the point where they expected to find the redoubt, they came on an insignificant smashed up bit of trench. Could this be the famous Circus? A heavy enemy barrage was falling on the spot and decided their uncertainties. They pressed on to a well-marked ridge some 300 yards ahead across a cutting, whence they formed a line down a road to the north of Eaucourt l'Abbaye. This particular cutting, as it happened, was not marked on the map, and the officers, realising then that they had overshot the mark, believed that they were still further westward at a cutting, which was represented on the map, on the road from Eaucourt to Le Barque.

The position had obvious tactical advantages, and the companies started its consolidation and reported their location, as they-believed it to be, by runner to Battalion Headquarters. The message was at once communicated to Brigade, It was with some consternation that General Braithwaite, plotting out the map references, found his troops in a position so much “in the blue” as to invite disaster. He had no option but to order a withdrawal on The Circus. Meanwhile, however, as the smoke and dust cleared away, an opportunity offered itself for taking bearings, and the real position was discovered by the officers on the spot. They were joined by a party of the Londoners about Eaucourt, and a communication trench had now been dug back to The Circus. Permission was therefore obtained to remain on the line occupied.

The leading Wellington companies had joined in the later stages of the fighting and cleared the long German communication trench from The Circus to the Abbey Road, The other companies were sent forward in the evening to replace casualties. The 2 battalions proceeded with the consolidation, which was completed by dawn. A Strong Point was made on the Abbey Road. A hostile bombing attack during the night was repulsed. In the morning it was found that the party of Londoners had been cut off from the rest of their Division, and that Germans were still in their rear and to the east of Eaucourt L'Abbaye Arrangements were made to supply the party with food. Eaucourt itself was not finally cleared by-the English till the evening of the 3rd.

In these operations the 2nd Brigade sent about 250 prisoners to the collecting station at Bernafay Wood. Of these, 2nd Canterbury had taken 50, including a battalion commander and his staff. The remainder were secured on the left. The Wellington losses were light. In the 2 battalions which had borne the brunt of the fighting the casualties worked out evenly: 2nd Canterbury, going into action with 19 officers and 487 men, lost 11 officers and 164 men, 6 officers and 26 men being killed; 2nd Otago attacked with 19 officers and 314 men, and lost 10 officers and 175 men, 4 officers and 33 men being killed.

It had not been anticipated that the 3rd Rifles on the extreme right of the line would move, and they received only short warning that they too were required to deliver a simultaneous local attack at 3.15 p.m.. They were ordered to establish a line of Strong Points on high ground some 300 yards in front, in order to support a forward movement by the 21st Division, who had relieved the 55th on the right. Such hurried efforts are apt to result in failure, but the riflemen secured their objective with the loss of an officer and 15 men killed and 55 wounded. Many enemy were killed by fire and bayonet and lay in heaps in the sunken road leading to Ligny Thilloy. A counter-attack, reported by pigeon message to Division, was repulsed.

During the night (1st/2nd October) the troops of the 21st Division were relieved and, as sometimes happens during relief in an advanced portion of the battlefield, the incoming platoons of the 12th Division did not go beyond, or far beyond, the Gird System. Intimation of this was received by the 2nd Brigade Headquarters, and the 3rd Rifles were ordered to verify the information and, if their exposed position made it necessary, to withdraw. The posts were accordingly withdrawn under cover of darkness. On the following morning, however, the 12th Division moved forward to the advanced position won on the previous afternoon, and in conformity the Rifles again stalked their posts in face of enemy snipers and reoccupied them, fortunately with but a few casualties. German snipers had filtered in nearly as far as our vacated line, but these were driven off, and the posts were connected up the following night in pouring rain. Under cover of the darkness and storm a thorough reconnaissance was made of the enemy's new positions by Sergt. A. Shearer. The outposts in front of Gird Support were occupied in the early morning (3rd October) by the Rifles' garrison. An enemy aeroplane flying low failed to locate them, and when the German guns opened it was on the now empty Gird System that their fury fell.

In the evening of 1st October the 1st Rifles were put under General Braithwaite's command to strengthen his depleted forces. They moved up into the support positions, whence platoons were detailed to act as local reserves to the battalions in the line or as carrying parties. Thus no less than 3 Rifle battalions lent their support to the 2nd Brigade at this stage. The 3rd held the right flank, the 2nd the left, and the 1st lay in support.

It was clear that the spell of fine weather was over. Heavy showers fell during the night, and 2nd October was a day of strong wind and tempestuous rain. Continuous shelling was directed at our whole front. Telephonic communication was destroyed between battalions and brigade and between battalions and companies, except where the hollow gave shelter to 2nd Canterbury. There was no observation, and only 1 German aeroplane appeared which was brought down near Beaulencourt.

On the following night (2nd/3rd), as the 3rd Rifles toiled at the new trenches, the remainder of the Rifle Brigade took over the line. Rain was now falling in torrents, the trenches were knee-deep in mud, and relief was not competed till dawn. The 3rd Battalion extended its left, the 4th Battalion went into the centre, and the 1st took over the left in front of Eaucourt l'Abbaye from 2nd Otago and 2nd Wellington. The 2nd Rifles were withdrawn from the Flers System to Goose and Grove Alleys, 3 companies acting as brigade reserve. As with the 2nd Brigade, the Rifle battalions were all depleted to an average strength of 380, and on the 1st Brigade's coming forward into the intermediate area, which had now been extended to include the Flers Trench System, 1st Canterbury and 1st Wellington were put under General Fulton's tactical command.

The 2nd Brigade moved back to the reserve area, and after a rest and midday meal went straight on to the tents of Fricourt Camp. The troops were exhausted by the fighting, lack of sleep, and the long march, and to put a finishing touch on their hardships, many men of Otago had lost their greatcoats, which had been dumped prior to their attack and been blown up by shell-fire.

In the forward areas the conditions were now indescribably miserable for the gunners in their flooded pits and the sentries in their ditches, waist-deep with mud. The mere physical strain imposed on runners stretcher-bearers and all whose business it was to move along trenches or over the open was excessively arduous. The endurance of the infantry, however, was not to be much longer tested. In the evening (3rd October) the 41st Division commenced to relieve the forward units. The command passed on the following morning to the new Division.{59} During the relief the enemy artillery was unusually inactive. The weather, however, still remained execrable and it was through miry trenches and slippery shellholes that the battalions wearily plodded back to the camp at Pommiers Redoubt. There they found enough tarpaulins to give overhead shelter, but the ground was a swamp.

Prominent among their feelings, no doubt, was that sense of relief which found ironical expression even in the austere solemnity of battalion War Diaries. All had experienced continued privations and repeated perils. There were few that had not seen comrades stricken or blown skywards, or had not themselves been face to face with imminent death in manifold forms of horror. Some had been knocked over by concussion, some had been buried in the cataclysm of a trench, some had just in time parried a fierce bayonet thrust. Their nostrils had not yet banished the stench of putrefying corpses, their eyes the ghastly scenes in entanglements saps and shellholes, their ears the detonations of bursting bombs, the roar of mighty projectiles rushing towards them, and the crash, deafening and soul-shattering, as these exploded all around them. The following letter, written by a private soldier immediately after the battle, recorded in an unaffected, manly way, but with unconscious dramatic feeling, incidents to which all could have found parallels in their own experience. A small bombing enterprise had been successful:

“Just as the Lieutenant, who was the last to come back, was getting into our trench, a German machine gun away on the right got to work and just managed to pump five or six bullets into the Lieutenant's back. He lay in the trench in awful pain all the afternoon. It was impossible to get him down to the dressing station before dark. The trench was not wide enough to get a stretcher along, so that meant walking along the parapet, and that again meant the stretcher-bearers and wounded being riddled with bullets, There was an awful strafe going on all along the line all afternoon, and the village of Flers, just about half a mile at the back of us, was getting it hot and strong from the heavy German guns. As soon as it got dark, volunteers were called to carry the wounded officer down to the dressing station, a half-mile away. I was one of the party of four. We started off about 8 o'clock, and I, for one, never thought we should get to the station. First a huge shell, weighing nearly a ton, would come roaring and screaming through the air. Of course, if one should happen to meet one, there is one consolation—one would never know anything about it. Well, these shells were dropping all round us, some going over our heads and some falling short, and once we got knocked over by a shell exploding about thirty yards away. The explosion made a hole in the ground large enough to bury a horse in. The four of us got up again, and no one was hurt. I think the officer was unconscious, he never said anything. We moved on again, and at last reached a dressing station, but it was the wrong one, of course. Ours was half a mile away on the other side of the village.

“The village was in an awful state. Buildings blown down in the streets, huge trees cut down half-way up and blown down in the street. One half-tree landed in a shell-hole and looked as if it were going to be set there. The whole sky was lit up by shells exploding like continuous lightning. Half-way through the village a gas shell exploded, and the fumes were awful. By the time we had got the officer's gas helmet on, we were nearly choking. We were not long getting our own helmets on. We arrived at the right dressing station at last, more dead than alive, and handed our man over.”

But at the same time the exhausted troops at Pommiers Camp were grimly conscious that they had, as they might have said simply, done their job, that they had not merely performed the, tasks set themselves, but on more than one occasion rendered effective help to formations on their flanks. Commencing on a frontage of under 1000 yards, they were holding at the close a line nearly 3 times as long. In the great battle of the 15th, and subsequent advance on the 16th, in which all brigades took part, in the grisly struggle of the 20th in Goose Alley, in the 1st Brigade operations of the 25th md 27th, and in the final assault by the 2nd Brigade on 1st October, they had achieved all but unbroken success, captured 5 miles of enemy front line and 5½ miles of other trenches, and fought their way forward for over 2 miles. Themselves losing under 20 prisoners, they had captured nearly 1000 Germans, with many machine guns and war material. Finally, what only soldiers can appreciate, the-brought out with them their full complement of machine and Lewis guns. On the other hand, they had sustained 7000 casualties. The bodies of 60 officers and 1500 men were left in the cemeteries or battlefield graves of the Somme.{60}

In the afternoon of the 4th, Major-General J. P. du Cane, who had relieved Sir Henry Horne in command of the XV. Corps, visited the battalions to express his appreciation and say good-bye. On the departure of the Division from the battle the Commander-in-Chief sent the following telegram to the New Zealand Government:—

“The New Zealand Division has fought with the greatest gallantry in the Somme battle for 23 consecutive days, carrying out with complete success every task set and always doing more than was asked of it. The Division has won universal confidence and admiration. No praise can be too high for such troops.”

In a copy sent to the Fourth Army, the Chief of the General Staff intimated that: “The Commander-in-Chief desired to add his warm congratulations to the Division on the splendid record they had achieved.” On forwarding this letter to the Corps, the Fourth Army Commander desired that his congratulations should be conveyed to the New Zealand Division “on the well-deserved praise they have received from the Commander-in-Chief, and his admiration of their gallantry and success.”

In addition, he sent later the following tribute:—

"Fourth Army,

October 7th, 1916.

"I desire to express to all ranks of the New Zealand Division my hearty congratulations on the excellent work done during the battle of the Somme.

"On three successive occasions (15th and 25th September and 1st October) they attacked the hostile positions with the greatest gallantry and vigour, capturing in each attack every objective that had been allotted to them. More than this, they gained possession of, and held, several Strong Points in advance of and beyond the furthest objectives that had been allotted to them.

"The endurance and fine fighting spirit of the Division have been beyond praise, and their successes in Flers neighbourhood will rank high amongst the best achievements of the British Army.

"The control and direction of the Division during the operations have been conducted with skill and precision, whilst the artillery support in establishing the barrage and defeating counter-attacks has been in every way most effective.

"It is a matter of regret to me that this fine Division is leaving the Fourth Army, and I trust that on some future occasion it may again be my good fortune to find them under my command.

"H. Rawlinson, General,

"Commanding Fourth Army."

The efficiency of the Work of the Medical Corps was sufficiently attested in the following memorandum:—

“The D.M.S., Fourth Army, and D.D.M.S., XV. Corps, desire to make known to all ranks of the N.Z.M.C. their appreciation of the work done during the recent operations. The arrangements for evacuation of wounded and the successful way in which the arrangements worked met with their special approbation. Casualty clearing stations report that the treatment of all cases evacuated to them had reached a very high standard, and that no case had been evacuated without having received anti–tetanic serum.”

While the artillery remained in the line, the rest of the Division constituted Corps Reserve for the attack proposed for 5th October. The weather, however, necessitated its postponement. On the 6th, Divisional Headquarters moved back to Hallencourt, and the 2nd and 3rd Brigades entrained for the X. Corps area in the lower Somme. The 1st Brigade left Albert on the following day for the same destination. On the 10th aid 11th the Division (less artillery) entrained to rejoin 11 Anzac.

The sector held by the New Zealanders and now handed over to the 41st Division had been covered at the beginning of September by the 14th Divisional Artillery Group which comprised the 14th Divisional Artillery and the 1st and 2nd New Zealand Artillery Brigades. At the end of September the 14th Divisional Artillery was relieved by the 21st Divisional Artillery. The 3rd and 4th Brigades, which had been attached to the Group covering the front of the Division on the right, were now transferred to the 21st Group. In the middle of October the 21st Divisional Artillery was replaced by the 12th Divisional Artillery, which gave its name for the time being to the Group, now comprising its own brigades, the New Zealand artillery, and certain other elements. The New Zealand batteries supported the numerous attacks made throughout the month of October, and remained exposed to the enemy counter-battery activity in positions which had been pushed distinctly far forward in anticipation of a further advance. On the 5th, for example, a gun of the 3rd Battery was destroyed by a direct hit which blew up the ammunition and killed the detachment, and an 8-in. shell struck an ammunition pit of: the 15th Battery, causing the shells to explode and killing an officer and 8 men, in addition to inflicting other casualties.

Towards the end of their stay the weather became definitely unpropitious, and constant rain, impeding communications, robbed the British Armies of the full advantages that their achievements might not unreasonably have been expected to yield. No cessation or slackening, however, was made in our bombardment. Day and night, fire continued on the German entrenched positions, batteries, and villages. In view of the hoped-for improvement in weather and the resumption of operations, the enemy's approaches were systematically shelled. Dead ground was searched by day, and all roads and tracks at irregular intervals and at constantly varied points throughout the night to prevent the bringing up of supplies and material. Indications pointed to the possibility of a counter-offensive, and cover for guns and crews had to be constructed to minimise the danger of loss of gun-power in case of a hostile preparatory bombardment. For this reason, too, the amount of ammunition at the gun positions was augmented, and as the condition of the roads made wagon transport impossible, the unfortunate animals, now in miserably poor condition, "packed" it up through the mud, making more than one trip a day. After 52 consecutive days in the battle the New Zealand gunners were relieved on 25th and 26th October by the 1st Australian Divisional Artillery. By herculean exertions a few Australian guns were actually brought up to positions after darkness on the 25th. Others were bogged on the Flers Road and hauled back to the wagon lines under cover of mist on the 26th. The brigades for the most part exchanged guns. Of those which had been replaced by the Australians and had to be dragged to the wagon lines, some sank deep in the mud, and not all the labour of men and horses could move them.

In this "set-piece" warfare little scope was offered for spectacular performances by the artillery, but their records are illuminated by repeated instances of devotion to duty, as shown, for example, by gun detachments continuing to fire a barrage under a hail of shells, and of initiative, as in the handling of captured German guns close to the front trenches for sniping purposes. Throughout the battle their action exemplified the skilful application of a high standard of technique, and was extolled by the British regiments not less highly than by their New Zealand comrades. Yet it may be doubted whether any, feature of their work displayed greater qualities of resourcefulness and resolution than their never-interrupted success, despite prolonged conditions of the utmost difficulty, in bringing up their ammunition over those forlorn shelled wastes of mud and craters. The batteries had fired approximately 500,000 rounds on the Somme and sustained over 500 casualties. The Divisional Ammunition Column alone had over 70 animals killed and 8 wagons destroyed by shell-fire. The 3rd Battery had lost its gun detachments 3 times during the battle, and had 5 battery commanders casualtied in succession. The following message of appreciation was sent by the Commander of the 21st Divisional Artillery Group on his severing connection with the New Zealand gunners:—

“On handing over command of this Artillery Group I wish to convey my thanks and the thanks of the 21st Divisional Artillery to the officers, N.C.O.s, gunners, and drivers of the New Zealand Divisional Artillery for their hearty co-operation during the recent operations and far the splendid work which they have done.

“The difficulties of ammunition supply, which have been great, have been overcome, and the good shooting of the batteries and the successful barrages have been spoken of in most complimentary terms by our infantry.

“Please convey to all ranks under your command my congratulations and best wishes for their future success.”