destroyed, and had to reconstruct it from the beginnings, ere any further pressure could be exercised. The German front before Arras was unaffected by their withdrawal, and here preparations of every conceivable sort were being piled up against the approaching battle of the Ancre where from Croisilles to Vimy Ridge our Third and First Armies broke through on a front of fifteen miles on April 9, and after a week’s desperate fighting, hampered as usual by the weather, carried that front four miles farther eastward, captured 13,000 prisoners and 200 guns; and, through the next month, fought their road up and into the northern end of the Hindenburg Line near Bullecourt whose name belongs to Australia. On the 23rd of March the Battalion was taken out of its unmolested German trenches and marched to Combles, where it was used in road-making between Frégicourt, Bullet Cross-roads and Sailly-Saillisel, till the 5th of April. There was just one day in that stretch without rain, hail or snow, and when they were not road-making they buried dead and collected salvage and were complimented by the commanding officer of engineers on their good work. As the men said: “It was great days for the Engineers--bad luck to ’em--but it kept us warm.” Their total losses for March had been one officer, Major G. E. S. Young, killed and one, Lieutenant Walter Mumford, M.C., slightly wounded; fourteen other ranks killed and forty wounded--fifty-six in all or less than 10 per cent. of the Battalion’s strength at the time. Second Lieutenant H. V. Fanshawe joined on the 30th March.