Kindness to a German is often misplaced, as we found when his "travelling Circus" of heavy trench mortars arrived. Having unobtrusively got these weapons into concentrated positions near his support line he suddenly loosed them all off one afternoon at an extremely annoying and rapid rate of fire, peppering all the trenches that we had spent such time in getting into habitable condition. It was a nerve-racking experience while it lasted but the 7th stuck to their posts ready to meet any Hun attack should it develop. What the enemy had really intended was never quite understood, but a small party of Boche got across No Man's Land that night. One of "B" company's posts saw them, however, and attacked them. One German got into our trench and Pte. Saunderson chased him but failed to get him. Jerry, in his hurried departure, left behind him his cap and one or two other articles and these, together with a collection of battered trenches and a few slight casualties, were the only souvenirs we got out of this "stunt," with the exception of the M.M. awarded to Pte. Saunderson, for his plucky conduct. The divisional commander was in the battalion area at the time, and he afterwards sent us a congratulatory message on the steadiness of the men, a compliment of which we were justly proud. On January 22nd we moved out to Le Preol into brigade reserve. The 7th were particularly fortunate in coming out of the line at this time, for we did not go in again before the whole division was relieved. After our allotted period at Le Preol it was the brigade's turn for divisional reserve, and this was accompanied by another move back to Hingette, near Locon. One of our functions in this position was to back up the Portuguese if they should be attacked, for they lay on the left of the 42nd. This entailed a careful reconnaissance of all the ground behind their positions, and the siting and construction of defended localities in that area. So the battalion found itself digging and wiring once more in new soil.