Finding it impossible to stay in the front trench any longer, No. 4 Company retired to the brickyard. Captain Rennie, who commanded them, was never heard of again. Still the Grenadiers held doggedly on to their support trench for another hour, until it was found that the Germans had got round their left and were enfilading the whole trench. Bullets seemed to be coming out of the mist from all directions, and the enemy to be on every side. Captain Rasch, who was now the only officer left above the rank of lieutenant, decided to get out of the trench and retire to the small wood near the brickyard. The order was given, and the Grenadiers--what was left of them--retired to the wood and formed up on the other side.
In the meantime the First Division on the left, almost annihilated by superior numbers, had been forced back. This made the position of the Grenadiers still more untenable, but General Capper was gathering together what reinforcements he could to save the line.
Seeing what straits the Grenadiers were in, the Gordon Highlanders on the right sent what reserves they had to help, and a company arrived under Captain Burnett. The Grenadiers and Gordons formed one line, and advanced gallantly, but when they got near the wood they came under the fire of a German machine-gun, which enfiladed them. Undaunted by this bad start, and determined to regain their former trenches, Captain Rasch and Captain Burnett led their men on through the wood. There was something particularly gallant in the way this remnant of a battalion, with one reinforcing company, was not content to hold its own, but actually undertook a counter-attack when it knew the enemy was in vastly superior numbers. It was the men themselves, inspired by the few remaining officers, that were carrying out this counter-attack.
Back through the wood they went, and gained the north side of the brickfields, but the Germans, at first taken by surprise at this bold stroke, rallied and drove them out. A second time our men counter-attacked, and this time they forced their way past the brickfields to a hedge running parallel with the road. They got into the ditch on the south side of the Menin road, and were joined there by two platoons of the Gloucester Regiment, which came up as a reinforcement. In that ditch they remained till the order came to retire. Captain Rasch and Lieutenant Pilcher took their handful of men--all that remained out of the splendid Battalion nearly 1000 strong, which had marched out from Ypres less than a fortnight before--and got into a trench some three hundred yards east of the windmill.