By a curious coincidence all three Scottish Divisions, the 51st, the 9th, and the 15th, were engaged in operations close to Arras, as well as many Scottish battalions from other Divisions, such as the 3rd and 34th. Arras, therefore, became a great social centre. Though considerably damaged, it had many good billets and excellent cellars and caves for use in emergency. The whole town was, however, in the early days of April, in a most insanitary and disgusting condition. Accumulated heaps of months-old refuse and garbage lay everywhere in the courtyards and gardens. In course of time, however, the town was cleaned up by the troops, who would otherwise have been refreshing themselves for their next fight, and became most comfortable. One felt then and often how unfortunate it was that the infantryman had so frequently to be employed on tasks menial to a fighting man, such as road sweeping, scavenging, or unloading coal trains, when he should have been either resting himself or perfecting himself in the profession of arms. Circumstances, however, compelled these burdens to be thrust on the fighting units. In this connection one remembers a cavalryman, up to his hocks in mud, sweeping the streets of Acheux one November morning, who, on being asked to what unit he belonged, replied feelingly, "We used to be blinkin' Hussars." But this is a digression. The trench system taken over was one which will for ever remain fresh in the memory of all who fought there. Its chief characteristics were numerous defiles, which daily had to be traversed, and which were more or less permanently bombarded. These defiles consisted first of the bridges over the river Scarpe, which had to be crossed by all whose business took them into the right sector, and which were within range of machine-guns and rifles. There was also the straight embankment of the Arras-Douai railway, down which the Germans looked from its highest point. This embankment was continually bombarded. There was the road from Athies to Fampoux, and Fampoux itself, and the road from Feuchy to Fampoux, which were shelled almost every hour of the day. Further, there was the Hyderabad Redoubt, which was a veritable cockshy. This redoubt was an old German headquarters north-west of Fampoux, perched on the crest of an upland. It was shelled so heavily that approach was seldom comfortable; while, having once entered, to make a graceful exit was equally rare. Lastly, there were the few valleys which afforded shelter for the guns, which were treated to special and intense bombardments of their own several times a day, an abundance of gas being used against them.