On May 8th "A" Company relieved "C" Company in the subsidiary line, and full particulars of the raids were obtainable. The enemy had certainly put up a very fine barrage, but fortunately "C" Company had escaped casualties, though Captain Eccles, returning from Battalion Headquarters, had a narrow escape, and had been forced on one occasion to make a somewhat hasty descent into a muddy ditch. Preparations now commenced for the relief, an operation which became easier every time the battalion returned to the old sector. On May 11th the Lewis gunners moved in, and the trollies were soon busy trundling up and down the Houplines road, which became more unhealthy every day. Shelling was, in fact, much more frequent and general by day, though our nights also were regularly disturbed by the scream and crash of the shells landing in the houses. The area round the Pont de Nieppe attracted special attention, and many civilians were killed or wounded. The gas-works, where a number of guns were concentrated, the churches of Notre Dâme and St. Vaast, the Rue Sadi Carnot, the railway station, and other places, also came in for their share of attention, till really one began to think that perhaps the trenches were preferable to the billets. On May 10th a Padre was attached to us, the Rev. M. T. Eland, and it was arranged that he should share Captain McHugh's elegant quarters at Tissage Dump. This was a reasonably intact house, containing, amongst other choice bits of furniture collected from the neighbouring houses, some beautiful plush-covered chairs. The area just beyond Tissage Dump itself used to come in for a good deal of shelling, but McHugh slept unconcernedly on the first floor, and paid little attention to the noise of falling débris and the hum of flying splinters. It was a handy place of call for visitors, often rather breathless in consequence of having traversed the last part of the Houplines road in what the text-books call "a series of short rushes."