In the next camp was a New Zealand Cyclist Battalion against whom a very vigorous “rugger” match was played. The result was one casualty--Sec.-Lieut. F. Irish with a dislocated elbow--and a win for the Battalion by two tries to a try. Little training was possible for, a few days after arrival at the camp, practically every available man was moved to Lancer Camp, near Potijze, for working parties. Little more than Battalion H.Q. remained at Vancouver Camp. Three days later the Battalion was again concentrated in Dragoon Camp, and the next night took over the Keerselaarhoek Sector from the 4th Battalion Suffolk Regt. (33rd Division). This sector deserves more than a passing mention as it was one of the worst, if not the worst, ever held by the Battalion. The usual route to the line lay along a gridded track which seemed endless to the weary and heavily-laden soldier. The track was far from “healthy,” particularly where it wound round Abraham Heights; at this point several casualties were suffered by the advanced party, when the Battalion was first taking over the sector. But it was after Seine that the real trouble began. Just beyond that point the grids came to an end,[13] and for the rest of the way, over a mile in distance even if a direct line were followed, the troops simply wallowed among mud and shell holes, appalling even in that country. The front line posts were on either side of the Ypres-Roulers Railway, and their condition beggars description. Originally shell holes, attempts had been made to improve them by digging; but so water-logged was the ground that all excavations filled with water almost at once, while the sides caved in as quickly as they were dug out. To the south of the railway another difficulty presented itself; as often as digging was started anywhere, dead bodies, in a state of decomposition, were uncovered, and the hole had to be filled in quickly. It was extremely difficult to get R.E. material up to the front line at all. Owing to enemy observation no movement was possible by day, and the nights were so black, and usually wet, that a man could hardly see a yard in front of him. The man who had carried up one trench grid or revetting frame from Battalion H.Q. to the front line, had done a really hard night’s work. The Ypres-Roulers Railway, which ran through a deep cutting and should have been an easy and direct route to the line, was absolutely impassable owing to the thick mud which covered it. No fires could be lit, and the only hot food or drink that could ever be obtained was that heated over Tommy’s cookers. In short, the state of discomfort and misery in which the men lived had never been equalled in the history of the Battalion, except possibly in those ghastly days on the extreme left sector in December, 1915. An American officer, who was attached to the Battalion at this time, expressed amazement that men could exist at all under such conditions.