The 36th Division had a glance only, infinitely tantalizing, at the beautiful valley of the Bresle, with its pastures and woodlands, and snug villages in which the troops were billeted, from Gamaches, several miles inland, to the little pleasure-resort of Ault on the coast. A short rest in these surroundings would have been delightful. But there was no rest for anyone for a long time to come, nor could be. The last trains did not arrive in the area till the morning of April the 1st; the last trains left it, bearing the remnants of the Division towards Ypres, on the 4th. For the old battlefield, still known as the Salient, was its new destination. The interval had been spent in reorganization and the absorption of the Entrenching Battalions, originally formed in February from the surplus personnel of the infantry, which had accompanied the Division north. They did not go very far to fill the gaps caused by the prodigious casualties. The word gaps, in fact, is inapplicable. The infantry of the Division had disappeared. The 108th Brigade had been reduced to a little over three hundred, mostly transport and employed men. The total casualties in the Division in the ten days from March 21st were 7,252. Of these, 185 officers and 5,659 other ranks were reported missing. Perhaps four-fifths of these were prisoners of war, wounded or unwounded. It was a very weak Division which detrained at Proven and other stations further west. From the day of its arrival, however, it began to receive very large drafts from the flood of recruits that now poured across the Channel. Bitter criticisms have been heard of the policy which had kept so many troops in England till then. Whatever their justice in some cases, they have none where the drafts now received by the 36th Division are concerned; for of these eighty or ninety per cent. consisted of boys of nineteen, with far from adequate training. In some cases these youths, almost before they knew their officers by sight, were to be put to the severest test, and were to emerge from it with quite astonishing credit. Divisional Headquarters, in which Lieutenant-Colonel A. G. Thompson, D.S.O., Indian Army, had succeeded Colonel Place as G.S.O.1, were established at Ten Elms Camp, near Poperinghe, on April the 3rd. On the night of the 6th the Division began relieving the southern part of the front held by the 1st Division. By the morning of the 8th the relief was complete, the 107th Brigade being in front line, the 109th in support, and Divisional Headquarters on the Canal Bank a mile north of Ypres.[55]