On the 25th of the month they were told that the Guards Division offensive was cancelled for the time being; that they would probably be used in the line till about the 20th September, and that the final attack on Houthulst Forest would be carried out by a couple of other divisions. Meantime, they would be shifted from camp to camp, which they rather detested, and lectured and drilled. As an earnest of this blissful state they were forthwith shifted to Abingley Camp, in the Elverdinghe area and on the edge of trouble, in cold, driving wet, to find it very dirty and the tentage arrangements abominably muddled. Naturally, when complaints might have been expected, the men were wildly cheerful, and wrestled with flapping, sodden canvas in a half gale as merrily as sailors. The house-keeper’s instinct, before mentioned, of primitive man always comes out best at the worst crisis, and, given but the prospect of a week’s stay in one place, a Guards Battalion will build up a complete civilisation on bog or bare rock. The squally weather was against aeroplane activity till the 2nd of September, when the neighbourhood of the camp was most thoroughly searched with bombs, but nothing actually landed on them. Next midnight, however, they had all to flee from their tents and take refuge in the “slits” provided in the ground. This is ever an undignified proceeding, but the complaint against it is not that it is bad for the men’s nerves, but their discipline. The Irish appreciate too keenly the spectacle of a thick officer bolting, imperfectly clad, into a thin “slit.” Hence, sometimes, unfortunate grins on parade next morning, which count as “laughing.” Vastly more serious than the bombing, or even their occasional sports and cricket matches, was that their C.O. inspecting the Pipers “took exception to the hang of their kilts.” It ended in his motoring over to the Gordons at Houbinghem and borrowing the pipe major there to instruct them in this vital matter, as well as in the right time for march music. They were then sent to the master tailor to have some pleats taken out of the offending garments and fetched up, finally, on parade wearing their gas-helmets as sporrans! But they looked undeniably smart and supplied endless material for inter-racial arguments at mess.