The 20th May saw them in the clean back-area at the pleasant well-treed village of Longuenesse, three miles south-west of St. Omer, all together in good billets and plenty of clean straw at one farm; Headquarters at a neighbouring château, the 2nd Coldstream, their particular friends with them, and the other battalions of their brigade at villages near by. The weather was good; for a week at least work was reasonable, and they all went to pay a visit disguised as a “Battalion Drill” to the parade ground of the cadet-school at Blendecques, of which Lieutenant J. Halligan, late Orderly-Room Quartermaster-Sergeant of the Battalion, was Adjutant. It is reasonable to infer that the Russian General at the Poperinghe camp got no better in the way of a ceremonial parade than did their old comrade. The shadow of preparations for the Somme fell over them afterwards. They dug quadruple lines of trenches and assaulted them in full kit with gas helmets; and found time, between whiles, to hold a boxing competition, at which the 12th Lancers arrived with “their private Young,” who was defeated by the Battalion’s Company Sergeant-Major Voyles. These things are as sacred as the Eton dinner at St. Omer on the 3rd June, which seven officers from the Battalion attended. On the 7th June they moved on a twelve-mile march to Hondeghem, under Cassel, _en route_ for a Poperinghe camp once more, and developed several cases of sore feet. This was put down to a “bad issue of socks,” but it supports the theory of the Sergeant’s Mess, that nothing but careful inspection, coupled with steady route-marching, can “put a foot” on men who have been paddling in trench-mud with twisted, water-logged boots. At Poperinghe they were coolies again till they went into line on the 15th June. A permanent fatigue-party of 150, under 2nd Lieutenants Hegarty and Earle, was sent to the Engineers near Ypres. Another, a hundred strong, helped to bury field-cables by night at Brielen on the Ypres-Elverdinghe road, a place much sought after by the enemy’s artillery. But digging is reckoned better than drill, and their next tour of duty was to be a wearisome one. Lieutenant J. N. Marshall from the Entrenching Battalion joined on the 15th, and Lieutenant J. K. Greer took command of No. 1 Company, Lieutenant Law being on a course.