On the 17th and 18th April they took the place, in reserve, of the 3rd Australian Brigade and worked at improving a reserve line close up to Hazebrouck. The enemy pressure was still severe, no one knew at what point our line might go next, while at the bases, where there was no digging to soothe and distract, the gloom had not lightened. The Australians preserved a cheerful irreverence and disregard for sorrow that was worth much. The Battalion relieved two companies of them on the 19th in support-line on the east edge of the Forest of Nieppe (Bois d’Aval) which was thick enough to require guides through its woodland rides. Here they lay very quiet, looking out on the old ground of the Vieux-Berquin fight, and lighting no fires for fear of betraying their position. The enemy at Ferme Beaulieu, a collection of buildings at the west end of the Verte Rue-La Couronne road and on the way to Caudescure, did precisely the same. But, on the 21st April, they gassed them most of the night and made the wood nearly uninhabitable. Nothing, be it noted once more, will make men put on their masks without direct pressure, and new hands cannot see that the innocent projectile that lands like a “dud” and lies softly hissing to itself, carries death or slow disablement. Gassing was repeated on the 22nd when they were trying to build up a post in the swampy woodlands where the water lay a foot or two from the surface. They sent out Sergeant Bellew and two men to see if samples could be gathered from Ferme Beaulieu. He returned with one deaf man who, by reason of his deafness, had been sent to the Ersatz. The Sergeant had caught him in a listening-post! Next night they raided Ferme Beaulieu with the full strength of Nos. 2 and 4 Companies (eighty men) under 2nd Lieutenants Mathew and Close. It seems to have been an impromptu affair, and their sole rehearsal was in the afternoon over a course laid down in the wood. But it was an unqualified success. Barrages, big and machine-gun, timings and precautions all worked without a hitch and the men were keen as terriers. They came, they saw, and they got away with twenty-five unspoiled and identifiable captives, one of whom had been a North-German Lloyd steward and spoke good English. He told them tales of masses of reserves in training and of the determination of the enemy to finish the War that very summer. The other captives were profoundly tired of battle, but extremely polite and well disciplined. Among our own raiders (this came out at the distribution of honours later) was a young private, Neall, of the D.C.L.I. who had happened to lose his Battalion during the Vieux-Berquin fighting and had “attached himself” to the Battalion—an irregular method of transfer which won him no small good-will and, incidentally, the Military Medal for his share in the game.