On the front of the 108th Brigade there were fewer alarums and excursions. In the Couillet Valley its troops had even room for movement, the Germans contenting themselves with the establishment of posts in the sunken roads leading from Marcoing. Two prisoners were captured by the 2nd Rifles, and one by the 9th Irish Fusiliers. One post on the higher ground, at the very nose of the salient, was driven in by the enemy, but promptly re-established. One of the German prisoners reported that an attack was to be launched at dawn on the 14th. All troops and reserves "stood to," and an hour before dawn a great bombardment was opened by all the artillery on the III. Corps front. If attack were contemplated it did not develop. Until two days before its final relief the Division's front was covered by the 17th Artillery Brigade of the 6th Division, and three Army Field Artillery Brigades, under the command of General Brock. On the 14th the personnel of its own Artillery came in, taking over the guns _in situ_ of two of these Brigades. Welsh Ridge was safe now from anything but a "full dress" attack. But that was precisely what appeared to be coming. The Germans were plainly in aggressive mood. Their aeroplanes swept continually down upon our front-line trenches, firing upon the men in them. Areas in rear, about Metz especially, were bombed night and day. Their artillery was very active. Havrincourt Wood was rendered uninhabitable by its constant shelling. And it was increasingly plain that the infantry and machine-gunners of the 36th Division were in no fit state to withstand a new offensive in force. Never since it landed in France had the troops of the 36th Division been reduced to a physical ebb so low. The men became indescribably dirty; lungs, throats, and hearts were affected. High as were battle casualties, the sick wastage was higher still, which had not been the case even at Ypres in August, because then the weather, if wet, was warm. The troops had, in fact, been exposed to three weeks of winter in the open, with almost continuous fighting, while it is doubtful if those of the 36th Division had fully recovered from the effects of the Ypres episode, three months earlier. The great captains of old times, who decided that long spells of open warfare in winter were impossible, were not fools. Man born of woman cannot withstand for long that combined strain and exposure without appalling physical and moral deterioration. Morally the infantry had survived far better than the authority which left them in line had right to expect. The men kept surprisingly good hearts. Walking round these much-harassed outposts one was still greeted with a grin when one inquired how many "pine-apples" had come over in the last twenty-four hours from the German blocks a little further down the trenches. But physically they were wrecks. They were living on their nerves.