On this occasion the Division lay in a country of pleasant clean villages, nestling amongst orchards in blossom and woods in new leaf. Moreover, the weather was perfect, one cloudless day following another. The policy adopted during this period was to give the men the maximum of rest and recreation, as it was evident that the Division would shortly be called upon to take further part in active operations. After the men had cleaned themselves up and all deficiencies in equipment had been made good, training was practically confined to musketry. It was found that in the case of the older men musketry had become a forgotten art, while in the case of the new drafts it was an art which had never been adequately acquired. Long periods of trench warfare, and the undue importance which has been attached to the subsidiary weapons--the bayonet and the bomb--at the training centres had relegated the rifle to a secondary place. A concerted effort was therefore made to revive the prestige of the rifle by giving all ranks an intensive training in its proper uses. As was the case in most areas at this stage of the war, facilities for musketry were either non-existent, or consisted only of indifferent thirty-yard miniature ranges. However, by working at high pressure, whenever the country suited the purpose, serviceable ranges were soon improvised in every area, and were continuously used from dawn till dusk. Some of them were not quite as safe as those that one had been accustomed to at home; but the Division was lucky, and no one working in the fields was actually shot. On occasions peasants were certainly seen ploughing at the double behind the stop-butts, but they fortunately always managed to avoid the bullets. By the time orders to move back to the line had been received, every man had been put through a course, and had fired a considerable number of rounds. The scores made during a brigade competition held during this period show how the musketry of the army had suffered since the early days of the war. The ten best shots were picked from each company, and were given two minutes in which to fire 15 rounds each at a bull's-eye target at 200 yards. The average score made was 16·5 out of a possible 60, and this by picked shots. On 10th May the Division began to move to the line again, the 152nd Brigade by tactical trains to Arras, and the remaining two brigades by march route. On the night of 12-13th May, with rather mixed feelings, the 152nd Brigade relieved the whole of the 4th Division in the Roeux chemical-works sector. It was a difficult relief, as one brigade was taking over the line from two brigades, both of which had been reduced to the strength of about a weak battalion each. The relief was further complicated by the fact that the brigade-major of the outgoing brigade who was to hand over the greater portion of the front was killed on the morning of the relief.