With the move to Mailly-Maillet began a period of nearly four months, during which the Battalion never went into the line. Instead, it was employed on various forms of work, and had comparatively few opportunities for training. It is the longest period it ever spent out of action, while hostilities lasted. The billets at Mailly-Maillet were not at all bad. The village had been very little shelled, though, while the Battalion was there, enemy planes dropped some bombs on the outskirts. Practically all the men were in houses; the rooms were often quite bare but there were always fires. Training was impossible. Only very small drafts were arriving and so the strength of the Battalion was still very low. Practically every available man was required for the large working parties which had to be provided. [Illustration: Brig.-Genl. E. G. St. AUBYN, D.S.O.] These working parties were in connection with mining operations to the north-west of Beaumont Hamel, and were very strenuous. The Battalion shared the duty with the 5th Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regt., each having twenty-four hours on and twenty-four hours off. During the twenty-four hours of duty, three shifts, each consisting of two officers and one hundred other ranks, had to be found. Each shift was supposed to do eight hours’ continuous work, but it was not allowed to stop until the next shift was ready to take its place; so late arrivals became very unpopular. To take a typical shift, say one which was due at the mines at 8-0 a.m. The party paraded at 6-15 a.m. and marched to Auchonvillers. From that point it had to carry timber, sandbags and other R.E. material, required in the mines, up a long communication trench. Arriving at the mine at 8-0 a.m., the men had to work continuously until 4-0 p.m. The work was very hard. The men were formed into a chain from the mine face, along a tunnel, and then up the steps of the shaft. Their work consisted of throwing or passing the sandbags of “spoil” from the mine face up to the open, where a further party disposed of them. It can be imagined how monotonous the work was, and how tired the men were at the end of a shift. Then they had another one and a half hours of marching back to billets.