About this time a case of cerebral meningitis, or spotted fever, was discovered at the Guards' Depot at Caterham, Surrey, and orders were given for all drafts from England to be isolated. This caused a certain amount of inconvenience, as it was by no means easy to isolate a draft of 200 men. There were at the time only eight subalterns with the Battalion, which made the duty very heavy for the officers, but some of the other battalions had not even so many. From the 28th to the 30th the Battalion remained in billets at Les Choqueaux, and on the 30th marched to Bethune. It was only during marches of this length that the whole Battalion assembled together, and saw itself as a Battalion, instead of in isolated companies. It presented an extraordinary appearance. Hung round like a Christmas tree, wearing fur waist-coats, gum-boots, and carrying long French loaves, braziers, charcoal, spades, and sandbags, it looked more like a body of irregular troops from the Balkans than a battalion of Guards. [Sidenote: Feb. 1-5.] On February 1 the Battalion marched to Annequin, and No. 1 Company under Lord Henry Seymour went into the trenches at Guinchy, to reinforce the Coldstream Guards who had been heavily engaged. On the 2nd the whole Battalion took over from the Irish Guards the trenches from La Bassée road to the Keep, where it remained till the 5th. Although there was heavy shelling, the casualties were not large, but Second Lieutenant G. W. V. Hopley was badly wounded, and Sergeant Buttle killed. On February 1 the Germans broke the line in the Guinchy neighbourhood, and Cavan's 4th Brigade was brought up. A company of the 2nd Battalion Coldstream, supported by one company of Irish Guards, was ordered to counter-attack, but failed to retake the lost trench. Lord Cavan, having left orders that the ground was to be held at all costs, went off, and arranged a heavy bombardment from the howitzers and siege guns. As soon as this ceased 50 men from the 2nd Battalion Coldstream, followed by 30 men from the Irish Guards, with a company of the 2nd Battalion Grenadiers in support, dashed forward, and succeeded in taking all the lost ground. The attack was so successful that the Grenadiers never came into action. [Sidenote: Feb. 1915.] During the whole of February the 2nd Battalion Grenadiers occupied the trenches at Guinchy. The usual routine was forty-eight hours in the trenches, and forty-eight hours' rest in billets at Beuvry. The weather, which at home is only noticed by people with weak conversational powers, becomes a matter of enormous importance when you have to stand in a ditch for two days and two nights. The wet and cold made the life in the trenches at first very trying, but later, when the spring began, the nights in the trenches became bearable.