Owing to the formation of the 4th Guards Brigade in the Thirty-first Division, the Guards Divisional frontage was readjusted, and each Brigade, now consisting of only three battalions, had one battalion in the front line, one in support, and one in reserve, the latter usually in Arras. The 2nd Battalion was in support from the 2nd to the 5th, and was chiefly employed on fatigues, digging out forward trenches, and carrying up wire and duckboards. On the 6th it moved into the front line, when it had a few casualties. After four days in reserve at Arras it returned to the support line, and was again occupied in improving and strengthening the trenches. On the 14th Second Lieutenant A. P. J. M. P. de Lisle joined from the Reinforcement Battalion. Rumours of a coming German offensive reached the Division, and Staff Officers came from all directions, while new trenches in unexpected places sprang up every night. On the 22nd the Battalion went into reserve, and spent the following days resting in Gordon Camp. [Sidenote: March.] On March 6 a raid was carried out by the 2nd Battalion. While it was in the support line, Major Bailey had been told that the Battalion would be required to carry out a raid when it went up into the front line, as the Intelligence Branch of the Headquarters Staff was anxious to obtain information with regard to the coming German offensive. The place selected for the raid was opposite the extreme left of the Battalion frontage, and had been chosen partly because the aeroplane photographs showed that the enemy was thinner there than elsewhere, and partly on account of some rising ground on the left which would give partial protection from machine-gun fire. In the original scheme a silent raid by twenty-four men under Lieutenant Palmer was proposed, but this was altered later to a raid on a larger scale with an artillery and trench mortar barrage. In addition to the twenty-four men from No. 2 Company, eight volunteers from the other three companies were called for, and the whole party proceeded to Gordon Camp under Lieutenant Clarke, with Captain Browning, who was an old hand at raids, to supervise their training. Meanwhile a great deal of valuable reconnaissance and preparation was carried out from the front line by Captain O. M. Smith, commanding No. 2 Company. Unfortunately during the few days before the raid the visibility was good, and therefore unfavourable for such operations, since the greater part of the wire-cutting had to be postponed until the day before the raid took place. In order to deceive the enemy as to the actual place selected for the raid, wire-cutting was carried out at different places along the whole Divisional frontage.