This sector was, in one respect, the most “perfect” the Battalion ever occupied. Students of the many official handbooks on “Trench Warfare,” which were produced in the first two years of the war, will remember the excellent instruction on the planning of trenches--how each system should have a continuous front line, supervision trench, support line and reserve line, with numerous communication trenches from front to rear. They will remember too how each of these, except of course the supervision and communication trenches, was to consist of alternate bays and traverses, etc., etc. And those of them who knew the Western Front will remember how seldom, if ever, they saw these theories put into practice. Well, the F1 Sub-sector was an exception. The supervision trench did not, indeed, run the whole length of the front; but there were the continuous front, support and reserve lines, properly traversed and supplied with fire bays, and connected by numerous communication trenches. In fact, an aeroplane photograph of the sector might almost have been reproduced in one of the textbooks, as a perfect example of what ought to be done. The bombing expert had also been at work, and the protection of the main communication trenches was “beautiful,”--but was it effective? Perhaps it was due to this theoretical accuracy of the sector that the authorities selected it as a training ground for embryo officers. At any rate, several privates from the Artists’ Rifles were attached to the Battalion for instruction while it was in that area. So much for theory! In practice also the line was not at all bad. The trenches were deep and narrow, and afforded good protection against shell fire. At the beginning of February everything was frozen hard, and so there was no trouble with the mud; but when a thaw set in, shortly before the Battalion left the sector, the support line and several communication trenches soon became impassable. Accommodation was adequate; most of the dugouts were sufficiently deep to withstand any ordinary bombardment and a few were really comfortable. In short, the line had been carefully constructed, in accordance with ideas now quickly becoming obsolete; it had been well looked after, and might have been a pleasure to live in--but for the enemy. The archaic atmosphere was rather heightened by the presence of such “prehistoric” appliances as the West Spring Gun, and rifle batteries.