Advantage was taken of the bright nights to do a great deal of work. Much wire was put out in front, posts were improved and shelters built therein, and a lot of work was done on the support posts west of the ridge. Since the Battalion had last occupied the sector, two communication trenches had been cut through the ridge nearly up to the front line, and these made movement both safer and easier. Enemy artillery was not very active, and, with one important exception, most of the shelling was very scattered. It was one of these scattered shells that wounded Capt. E. V. Blakey, M.C., and C.S.M. J. Parkinson, as they were going the round of their company posts in the support line. The exception was a small but prominent pill-box on the crest of the ridge, which the Battalion used as an observation post, and the enemy apparently as a registration point. Fortunately this pill-box was very strong and had a cellar, to which the observers retired when things became too lively. The nearest enemy posts were a long way off; indeed, later information goes to show that the nearest post was at least a thousand yards east of Celtic Wood. Christmas Day, for the first and only time during the war, was spent by the Battalion in the front line. In the circumstances, little could be done to celebrate the occasion. Messages of goodwill were telephoned to the Brigadier and the Divisional Commander. One Company Commander, after laboriously putting a message of seasonable greetings into B.A.B. code, sent it over the wire to another company. The O.C. that company, delighted with his success in deciphering the first few letters of it, repeated it to Battalion H.Q. and to the remaining companies, in his own name. Rumour has it that one company, not very expert in B.A.B. code, spent a dreadful night wondering what operation was to take place; perhaps the mistakes which had been made in encoding the message accounted for the inability of these officers to read it. Many visitors called at Battalion H.Q. and visits were exchanged with the 1/6th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regt., which was holding the sector on the left. Apart from a present of shells, despatched to the enemy on the stroke of midnight, there was little activity on either side.