“If all the troops with all the tools Should dig for half a year, Do you suppose,” our Captain asked, “That then we should be clear?” “I doubt it,” said the Adjutant, Knowing the Brigadier. It is not often that the General Staff stoops to such frivolity in the transaction of business. But let no mistake be made. The hard conditions under which the men lived were not the fault of dear old General Brereton. The Battalion returned to the Lancashire Farm Sector on July 30th. Apart from considerable activity on the part of enemy trench mortars, and a good deal of sniping, the tour which followed was an uneventful one. A little patrolling was done, but nothing more important than a dead Frenchman and a few rats was discovered. Further over to the right, however, there was considerable activity. It was during this tour that the Hooge mine went up, and the 14th Division was attacked with flammenwerfer. To regain the ground thus lost to the enemy, the 6th Division was brought up. They attacked early on the morning of August 9th and carried all their objectives, but suffered heavy casualties in doing so. The 49th Division co-operated in this attack, though only in a passive way. Gaps were cleared in the wire, dummy bridges were laid over the canal, and artillery fired at intervals on the enemy front line, in an endeavour to distract the attention of the Germans from the real objective. The Battalion took no part in these activities, being in reserve on the Canal Bank at the time; but it suffered some casualties from the enemy barrage. Later in the day, Battalion H.Q. and B and C Companies were ordered up at short notice to relieve a corresponding portion of the 7th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regt. who were suffering from a sudden outbreak of ptomaine poisoning, which was so severe that about a hundred of them were sent to hospital. Two days later the other two companies of the 7th Battalion were also relieved. The sector now occupied by the Battalion was called the Glimpse Cottage Sector, and was held with three companies in the front line and one in support. Two months later it was to be the scene of the Battalion’s first serious encounter with the enemy, and so a detailed description of it is held over until then. But the tour in August was also a very active one, and during it the Battalion suffered two serious losses. The first was R.S.M. J. McCormack, who was killed on August 12th. The second was even more serious, and is especially worthy of attention as a conspicuous example of gallantry and self-sacrifice.