However, the sugar factory was in III Corps' new front line on the canal and next morning Corps HA ordered the battery to pull out. It did so under a German machine gun barrage and got back to a position near Petit-Detroit. Bombardier Jagger and 20 volunteers then went back with the FWDs and four lorries to recover ammunition from Flavy. Fire orders finally arrived at 15.00 and the battery targeted the canal bank and the railway bridge at Montescourt-Lizerolles that the engineers had been unable to blow up. There was confusion as the Germans crossed the canal and continued advancing: by 23 March 220th Siege Bty had lost communications with 66th Bde again. III Corps HA ordered it back to Guivry, then forward again to fire on Flavy: two of the guns were used to destroy the abandoned ammunition dump. On 24 March they got back to Beaugies-sous-Bois where 220th Siege Bty found some ammunition lorries and took them over. German cavalry could be seen in the distance and some of 56th Bde's other batteries had been cut off and captured. 220th Siege Bty retreated through Quesmy to the Noyon–Guiscard road, where it was ordered to fire off all its ammunition at Ugny-le-Gay.Edmonds, 1918, Vol I, pp. 211, 267–9.
