A mine exploded in front of the Redan cost the lives of three men of an attached Tunnelling Company, who were buried in a blown-in passage. Otherwise, during this period the weather was probably an opponent more formidable than the Germans. The men in the trenches lived under conditions of the deepest discomfort. For weeks together the communication trenches were knee-deep in water. Previous troops had dug deep sumps in the bottoms of the trenches, covering them with boards, with the idea of draining off the water. But the water soon filled these and rose till it floated off the boards. Then would come some unfortunate fellow splashing his way along the trench, to plunge into the hole and be soused in icy water to the waist or higher. Some of the ills then endured were, it must be admitted, not unavoidable. There was a certain lack of revetting material, it is true. Few of those who were compelled to use it will forget one notorious communication trench, "Jacob's Ladder," which ran from the village of Mesnil to that of Hamel, down a forward slope completely exposed to the enemy. By night the road could be followed without worse risk than occasional bursts of machine-gun fire, so that large bodies of men had seldom to use this trench. By day, however, men clawing their way through its mud experienced the sensations of flies in treacle. When time and material had become available for the revetting of its sides, all this was changed, and "Jacob's Ladder" lost much of its evil reputation. But on the front line trenches more could have been done than was accomplished. The chief methods of drainage employed were the digging of large sumpholes in the parados of the trench to carry off the water, and the pumping of it out over the parapet with hand-pumps, whence, of course, it presently filtered back to the trench bottom. Scientific trench drainage, by means of trenches cut for the purpose, had as yet made little progress, though the undulating character of the country was suitable to it. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the Division suffered more from the wet at this time than during the following winter in Flanders, in flat country and on a water-logged soil, simply because in the latter case the R.E. and infantry had learnt by experience how to deal with it.