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A few high velocity shells chased us through Cantaing, and then no interruption to a weary march finishing for the different companies at various hours after daybreak. The spell in the line at Cambrai was very short but as breezy a 24 hours as one could want, considering there was no special battle on.
At this time there were few troops on the bridgehead east of the Canal de l'Escaut. The area was periodically searched by the enemy heavy artillery, and the posts at Proville suffered considerably from minenwerfer fire. On relief the Battalion returned to La Folie Wood. When Cambrai fell on the 9th October the Battalion left for the Cantaing area and on the 11th moved to a bivouac area by Inchy.
Our transport lines were established at Cantaing, beside the field-guns. This shows the change that had taken place in our dispositions; it was now approaching a war of movement. While it was handy to have transport lines close up, it was costly in horse-flesh, the gunners having heavy losses, mostly from high velocity shells.
Flesquières was taken and then Cantaing and Fontaine-Notre-Dame; but the bid for Bourlon developed into a costly, stubborn, and indecisive struggle for five days while the Germans were being steadily reinforced. On the right Byng pushed out to Banteux, but the end of our advance on the 29th left us with a rectangular block of territory loosely attached to our original front.
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