On the 31st of March they were relieved and went to rest-billets. They had dug, wired, fought, and fallen back as ordered, for ten days, and nights heavier than their days, under conditions that more than equalled their retreat from Mons. Like their 1st Battalion in those primeval days, they had lost most things except their spirits. Filthy, tired, hoarse, and unshaven, they got into good billets at Chelers, just ripe for clean-up and “steady drills.” The enemy rush on the Somme had outrun its own effective backing and was for the while spent. Our line there had given to the last limits of concession and hung now on the west fringe of all that great cockpit which it had painfully won in the course of a year and lost in less than a fortnight. As far as the front could see, the game was now entirely in Hun hands. Our business, possibly too long neglected among our many political preoccupations, was to get more troops and guns into France. A draft of two hundred and twenty-four men reached the Battalion at Chelers on the 4th of April, under Lieutenant Buller, who went on to join the 1st Battalion, and 2nd Lieutenant Kent. A further draft of sixty-two, nearly all English, came in on the 7th. Colonel Alexander resumed command after his turn as brigadier, and Captain Charles Moore and Lieutenant Keenan also arrived. The former was posted to No. 1 Company for a time, pending action as Second in Command, and the latter attached to Battalion Headquarters for the comprehensive duties of sniping, bombing and intelligence. It was a hasty reorganisation in readiness to be used again, as soon as the Battalion got its second wind. VIEUX-BERQUIN