battalion in Montauban Alley and the rest of the guns and mortars waited with the reserve battalion, south of Montauban. There was unusually little German artillery-fire on Caterpillar Valley and the brigade lost seven casualties. There were no roads for the 27th Brigade to use so the 76th Brigade plan was adopted. A platoon covering force went forward at and an engineer tape long was used as a line, laid on a compass bearing by a party of Royal Engineers, the end being short of the German front line, which took Tapes were laid at right angles, checked and then the markers went forward. The brigade passed the west end of Montauban in column and formed up at near end of the tape in Caterpillar Valley. The two attacking battalions went first with the companies in line, in column of platoons in one rank, the support battalion behind with a field engineer company and pioneer company on either side. At the first battalion moved off followed by the second at and then both formed platoons in open column at spaces, to form the eight infantry lines, with trench mortars, machine-guns and carrying parties to the rear, suffering five casualties during the deployment. In XV Corps, the 3rd Division had put out an outpost line for several nights along a sunken road, parallel to and from the German front line, beyond the British front line. The division patrolled vigorously, dominating no man's land but could not prevent the Germans working on the wire, which was in long grass and difficult to see. On the nights of three communication trenches were dug forward into Caterpillar Valley; a derelict trench about from the German line was repaired and deepened behind a piquet established at on the night of The 8th Brigade (Brigadier-General E. G. Williams) and the 9th Brigade (Brigadier-General H. C. Potter) deployed in lines of platoons, also using a long tape. The leading battalions moved up to the sunken road at and were ready at the first wave beyond the road, machine-guns, mortars, engineers and pioneers in support and reserve, with only one casualty; earlier, three German deserters had disclosed that no attack was expected. The 7th Division was brought back after only five days' rest, with no time to assimilate large numbers of replacements. In the afternoon of 13 July, a battalion of the 20th Brigade (Brigadier-General Cyril Deverell) moved