On the morning of November 11th came news of the armistice, which had been concluded with the enemy. Hostilities were to cease at 11-0 a.m., and all troops were to remain in the positions occupied at that hour. The news came rather as a surprise to most. Sweep-stakes on the date of the cessation of hostilities had been got up in the last few days by both the 4th and 7th Battalions; officers of the former netted the proceeds of both. There was little time to make preparations for celebrating the occasion. At 11-0 a.m. the Battalion Band turned out and paraded the streets. A Battalion concert was hurriedly arranged for the evening and went off very well, in spite of the total absence of beer, which could not be procured in time. Brigadier-General H. H. S. Morant, D.S.O., was present, and said a few words to the men; his pious wish that the armistice had been postponed a little, in order that he might have seen the Battalion again in action, was greeted with many cries of dissent. Though, of course, everyone was glad that the war was over, there were undoubtedly some who viewed the event with rather mixed feelings. To those who had lived for more than four years with the one great purpose of defeating the enemy, it seemed almost that the object of their lives had been taken away. And there is also a spirit of camaraderie and good-fellowship on the battlefield and in the trenches which no peacetime conditions can wholly reproduce. The Battalion had come to Auby expecting to remain for, at most, a week or two. As events turned out it spent four months and a half there--by far the longest period it ever spent at one place abroad. The time was marked by few events of importance. Towards the end of November a draft, about 200 strong, arrived. This was rather a surprise, particularly as many of the men were farmers who, it was expected, would be in one of the earliest classes for demobilisation. Early in December it was decided to bring the Battalion Colours out to France, and a colour party[21] was sent to England to fetch them. The Colours had been deposited in the Parish Church of Halifax since the summer of 1915. On December 8th they were handed over to the colour party by the Rev. Canon A. E. Burn, D.D., after the morning service, and were safely conveyed to France. During the earlier part of December, ceremonial drill was the main occupation. On December 16th the 49th Division was inspected by the G.O.C., XXII. Corps, under whom it had served so long, though, at the time of the review, it was in the VIII. Corps. This was the first and only time that the whole division paraded together in France.