Sniping and bombing with intermittent shelling were of constant occurrence. The sad news that some officer, sergeant, or private had been killed was passed down the trenches with wonderful rapidity, and was known at once by the whole Battalion. The line of trenches now occupied by the Battalion was much drier than those it had been accustomed to, and far more intricate. When the trenches were known the relief became easy, although it was always carried out in the dark, but at first, when the officers and N.C.O.'s took over the trenches for the first time, it was long before every one settled down. The forty-eight hours' rest was spent in comparative comfort in billets at Beuvry, where the inhabitants still lived in spite of the proximity to the trenches. When the moment came to leave the billets and return to the trenches, the Battalion moved up in small parties at a time, in case the road should be shelled. Through endless transport of all kinds the men slowly wound their way. They usually met food going up, empties coming back, ammunition and supplies of all sorts, and as it became darker the road was more difficult. They often passed French troops on the way, with the secondary French transport, a motley collection of every conceivable sort of vehicle. Yet with all these different streams of men and wagons there was never any confusion or accident. As the platoons neared the trenches, stray bullets usually began to fly, and occasionally shells. Then each company, on reaching its allotted communication trench, disappeared, and so reached the firing line. The Battalion Headquarters were in the cellar of the ruins of a house, and here the business part of the work was carried on by clerks and orderlies. Sometimes shells fell on the remains of the house, but the cellar was never reached. A motor canteen presented by Lord Derby to his old Battalion now arrived, and proved a great boon. It could provide hot drinks for 300 men at a time. On the 7th Second Lieutenant H. A. R. Graham was badly wounded, and subsequently had to have his arm amputated. Captain A. B. R. R. Gosselin was bending down trying to dress his wound, when a piece of shell struck him in the neck and killed him instantaneously. On the 8th Second Lieutenant P. L. M. Battye was wounded in the leg, and Lieutenant Britten was sent to hospital with enteric fever.