Captain R. J. P. Rodakowski arrived from the base on the 18th of the month. The thaw caught them in camp at Maurepas, just as the enemy’s withdrawal got under way, and their turn in trenches from the 23rd to 26th February was marked by barrages let down on them of evenings, presumably to discourage curiosity. So they were ordered at short notice to send out a couple of officer’s patrols from their left and right companies to reconnoitre generally, and see if the enemy were falling back. The first patrol, under 2nd Lieutenant Shears, an N.C.O., three bombers, and three “bayonet-men,” spent a couple of hours among the wire, were bombed but returned unhurt. The second, also of seven men, under Lieutenant Browne, were seen by the enemy, headed back to our lines, but made a fresh outfall, which carried them to the wire where, “finding a weak spot, they cut their way through it” and won within a few yards of the enemy’s parapet when they were bombed. They used up their own supplies and came back with a good report, and four men and Lieutenant Browne wounded. On their information a raid was arranged for the next day to take over a couple of hundred yards of the enemy’s trench, but it was cancelled pending developments elsewhere. They lost two killed and thirteen men and one officer wounded in this tour, and went back to routine and “specialist” training in a camp near Billon on the last day of February. Their domestic items for the next fortnight, which, like the rest of March, was cold and stormy, run as follows: 2nd Lieutenant A. L. Bain went to the Fourteenth Corps School for a fortnight at Méaulte, which, in that weather, was no special treat; and Lieutenant E. H. Shears to Headquarters Lewis Gun School at Le Touquet, a much superior place. Lieut.-Colonel R. C. A. McCalmont left on the 3rd March to take over command of the 3rd Infantry Brigade just south of the Somme, and had a tremendous send-off from the Battalion. He was succeeded in the command by Major the Hon. H. R. Alexander, D.S.O., M.C., and Major G. E. S. Young came over from the 2nd Battalion as second in command--as it proved for all too brief a time. The specialist training continued, and “open warfare” was practised by companies. There was an irreverent camp-jest just then that whenever the enemy abandoned one quarter of a mile of trench, the five nearest British army corps forsook every other game to practise “open warfare.” The Battalion learned also attacks on triple lines of trenches, the creeping barrage being personified by their drums and those of the 2nd Coldstream. In this sort of work, men say, there is a tendency to lean a little too heavily on such a barrage, which had to be checked by taking the offender’s name. (“So, ye’ll understand, ye catch it, both ways; for if ye purshue the live barrage ye’ll likely to be killed; an’ if you purshue a dhrummy barrage too close, your name’s in the book. That’s War!”) THE SOMME ADVANCE