From this time onward the Division was divided into two groups, each consisting of six battalions. This necessitated the 2nd Guards Brigade being split up, and two battalions were sent to each group. The right group consisted of the 1st Guards Brigade with the 1st Battalion Coldstream and 2nd Battalion Irish Guards. The left group consisted of the 3rd Guards Brigade with the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards and 1st Battalion Scots Guards. Thus the brigade system was in abeyance, and battalions worked the line in a regular cycle, always going and returning to the same camp or portion of the line. All blankets and cookers were made camp stores, to reduce the work of the transport. [Sidenote: Dec.] On December 1 the 3rd Battalion moved to a camp at Maltzhorn Farm, and on the following day marched _via_ Trônes Wood, Guillemont, and Combles to Haie Wood, where it was taken by French guides into the front line of trenches north of Sailly-Saillisel and south of Morval. This portion of the line had been only recently captured by the French, who had not had time to organise it properly. The parapets were extremely thin, and there were few if any fire-steps, while communication with the front was entirely overground. There was not a single strand of wire on the frontage, and the enemy was hardly eighty yards away. While the relief was being carried out, forty to fifty Germans attempted to make a raid, and got right up to the parapet, where they shot a French machine-gunner who was sitting on the saddle of his gun. The remainder of the gun-team retreated hastily down a small communication trench, and met No. 4 Company coming up. Rapid fire was at once opened on the raiders, who disappeared carrying off the machine-gun with them, and any further development of the attack was successfully frustrated, although the German barrage on our front line continued for some time. The following day a patrol that went out found the bodies of seven Germans belonging to a storm section of the 23rd Grenadier Regiment of German Infantry, and close by the machine-gun that had been lost. This gun was subsequently returned undamaged to the French.