Throughout October and November our battalion was in the firing-line. This meant that we spent life in an everlasting alternation between the trenches and our billets behind, just far enough behind, that is, to be out of the range of the light artillery; always, though, liable to be called suddenly into the firing-line, and never out of the atmosphere of the trenches. Always before us was dangled a promised “rest,” and always it was being postponed. Rumours were spread, dissected, laughed at, and eventually treated with bored incredulity. The battalion had had no rest, I believe, since May. Men, and especially N.C.O.‘s, who had been out since October, 1914, were tired out in body and spirit. With the officers and certain new drafts of men, it was different. We came out enthusiastic and keen. On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed those first two months. I am surprised now to see how much detail I wrote in my letters home. Everything was fresh, everything new and interesting. And things were on the whole very quiet. We had a few casualties, but underwent no serious bombardment. And, most important to us, of course, we had no casualties among the officers. Givenchy and Cuinchy are two small villages, north and south, respectively, of the La Bassée Canal, which runs almost due east and west between La Bassée and Béthune. Givenchy stands on a slight rise in the flattest of flat countries. A church tower of red brick must have been the most noticeable feature as one walked in pre-war days from the suburbs of Béthune along the La Bassée road. Cuinchy is a village straggling along a road. Both are as completely reduced to ruins as villages can be, the firing-line running just east of them. Between them flows the great sluggish canal. During an afternoon in Béthune one could do all the shopping one required, and get a hair-cut and shampoo as well. Expensive cocktails were obtainable at the local bar; there was also a famous tea-shop. We were billeted in one of the small villages around. Sometimes we only stayed one night at a billet: there was always change, always movement. Sometimes I got a bed; often I did not; but a valise is comfortable enough, when once its tricks are mastered. Anyhow it is “billets” and not “trenches,” that is the point; a continuous night’s rest in pyjamas, the facilities of a bath, very often a free afternoon and evening, and no equipment and revolver to carry night and day! It was in billets the following letters were written, which are really the best description of my life at this period. “19th October, 1915. Our battalion went into the trenches on the 14th and came out on the 17th. Our company, ‘B,’ was in support. The front line was about 300 yards ahead, and we held the second line, everything prepared to meet an attack in case the enemy broke through the first line. Half-way between our first and second lines was a kind of redoubt, to be held at all costs. Here you are: