Indeed, it was hard to believe during the last three months that one was in what the railway advertisements call "Sunny France." One had lived in fogs which were a match for London, and mists and rain which compared favourably with the Western Highlands, and degrees of frost, wind, and snow which could hardly have been improved upon in Caithness. There were, however, no winter quarters in this war in Gaul. The men lived as hard a life as could well be imagined; and though it would not be true to say they thrived on it, they endured it in an exemplary manner. One requires to have wintered in "Sunny France" in canvas tents, open-work barns, and "Bairnsfather" shacks on perhaps one hot meal a day to appreciate the hardships and discomforts of winter warfare. CHAPTER IX. THE BATTLE OF ARRAS. On 11th February the Division took over the left sector of the XVIIth Corps front from the 9th Scottish Division, and was disposed as follows: the 152nd Brigade in the line, with brigade headquarters at Marœuil; the 154th Brigade at Ecoivres and Bethonsart, with headquarters at Acq. The 153rd Brigade was at Frévilliers, and was employed entirely in finding Corps working parties. The sector taken over extended from Bogey Avenue east of Roclincourt to Old Fantome Trench, just west of the Arras-Lille road. The Division had thus returned to familiar ground. Preparations were at once begun for an attack on a large scale. From now onwards, up to the signing of the armistice, the Division was to be continuously engaged in major operations, with the exception of the few months in which it held the line between the battle of Cambrai in November 1917 and the German offensive in March 1918. As it was once put, for the next two years the Division was in a permanent state of being in a battle, or preparing for a battle, or coming out of a battle. On this occasion the general plan of the Allied armies comprised a series of offensives on all fronts. The rôle of the British was to attack the enemy troops occupying the salient, into which they had been pressed as a result of the Somme battle, between the rivers Ancre and Scarpe.