On February 1 our mine-shaft in the same locality flooded without warning and drowned a couple of men in a listening-post. Our pumps could make no impression on the water; it was difficult to put up any head-cover for the men in the forward sap, and the enemy’s wire was being strengthened nightly and needed clearing away. This was routine-work undertaken by our artillery who blew gaps in it in three places, which the Battalion covered with machine-gun fire. It kept the enemy reasonably quiet, and H.R.H. Prince Albert, who was out on a tour from England, breakfasted with Battalion Headquarters the same morning (February 5). Once again the enemy’s information must have been inaccurate or delayed since there is no mention of any shelling or aeroplane work on Headquarters. They came out of the line on the 7th and billeted near Merville. Reckoned by their standards it had been an uneventful stretch of duty, and those officers who could be spared had gone on short leave; for there was a rumour that leave would be stopped after the 20th of the month. The French and their English allies knew well that the great German attack on Verdun was ripening (it opened in the third week of February) and the world had no doubt of the issues that depended upon that gate to the heart of France holding fast. The whole long line stiffened to take the weight of any sudden side-issue or main catastrophe that the chance of war might bring about. But a battalion among hundreds of battalions knows as little what its own movements mean as a single truck in a goods yard knows of the import and export trade of Great Britain. The young officers snatched their few hours’ leave at home, loyally told their people that all was going well, returned--“to a most interesting lecture on the Battle of Neuve Chapelle,” delivered at La Gorgue by a Divisional Staff Officer, and to an inspection of the 1st Guards Brigade by Lord Kitchener on a vile wet day when they were all soaked to the skin (February 10), and “to the usual routine in very poor weather.” Lord Desmond FitzGerald, being now second in command by seniority, resigned his adjutancy and was succeeded by Lieutenant T. E. G. Nugent; No. 2, Captain Blake’s, Company was commanded by Major the Hon. A. C. S. Chichester, fresh from home, and Father S. Knapp, their priest, who had been transferred to the 1st London Irish, was followed by Father J. Lane-Fox from the same Battalion. Of the six Fathers who served the two battalions, two--Fathers Gwynne and S. Knapp, D.S.O., M.C.--were killed, one--Father F. M. Browne, M.C.--wounded twice, and one--Father F. S. Browne, M.C.--wounded once.