It was now evident that the lessons which the Battalion had learnt during its long period of training were very soon to be put into practice. The 24th April was spent in testing rifles and making final preparations for action, and in the evening an order arrived from the Brigade to get ready to move quickly. This order was given out and within half an hour the Battalion was on the pave road, marching towards Ypres. It entered the town as night settled on it. At this date the town was not ruined and the results of the shelling were hardly noticeable. As the Battalion was passing the Cloth Hall a shell came screaming faintly towards it, and, passing over, burst with a dull roar in the city a quarter of a mile away. There had been no talking in the ranks nor any sound except the beat of ammunition boots on the pave, but when this shell screamed overhead and burst, ejaculation in the good old Durham tongue could be heard passing cheerily up the length of the column. Two or three more shells passed over, but none burst near the Battalion. Reaching the top of the hill to the east of the city and leaving the white walls of Potijze Chateau on the left, the Battalion turned off the road and filed into the G.H.Q. line, a Battalion of the Shropshire Light Infantry climbing out to make room. This trench was of the breastwork type, and a novelty to the men whose idea of a trench was a ditch below the ground level. The dispositions of the Battalion were as follows: A Company were on the south side of the Potijze road and the remainder on the north side, with B Company on the right, D Company in the centre, and C Company on the left. The machine-gun section was with D Company. Transport lines were established just behind the Chateau near to a Canadian Battery. The position was unfortunate, for the section came under heavy shell fire and had several men and horses hit. Sunday, the 25th April, was the first day spent by the Battalion in the trenches. There was a considerable amount of shelling, but fortunately the Battalion in the trenches did not suffer. In the evening, as it got dark, the Battalion moved out of the trench and, forming up on the road which it had left the previous night, marched in fours for about a mile to Velorenhoek village, which was then almost intact. There the Battalion came under the orders of the 85th Infantry Brigade, and halted. All ranks slept for some hours on the roadside, or in the fields, gardens or cottages close to the road. Before dawn the Brigadier ordered the Battalion to vacate the village, and the column moved a few hundred yards up the road to the east. Here the Companies left the road and the men improved with their entrenching tools the little cover in the form of ditches and trenches which was to be found, and then lay down. Throughout this and the succeeding days the men were in marching order with full packs. The transport moved back to Potijze Wood, except the ration limbers, which went back to Poperinghe.