But though all hoped for Cavalry work in the near future, and a chance at the Uhlans, this was not to come yet. The enemy’s horsemen were no longer to be found in the extreme front, and the fighting was being done by our guns and Infantry, which were deficient in numbers and very hard pressed. The British Cavalry, therefore, though kept as far as possible efficient for their own work in case a chance should occur, had to be utilised to some extent to help the out-numbered foot-soldiers in the trenches; and during the first few days of the new year the officers and men of the Thirteenth, while undergoing Cavalry inspection and training, were hard at work perfecting themselves in their new duties. They had not long to wait. Before the middle of January they had been taken up to the firing line to be “shot over.” “On the 12th,” writes Lance-Corporal Bowie, “we were informed that we were to take our places in the trenches as infantry, having been armed with the new H. V. rifle and bayonet, and having had plenty of practice in bayonet-fighting, which was quite a new thing for the Cavalry, we were pretty confident of being able to do anything that was required of us dismounted. So leaving only sufficient men behind to attend to the horses, we started off the next morning in the highest spirits for Béthune, our conveyances being the good old London motor-buses, complete with their own drivers and conductors. Arriving there at 5 P.M., we marched direct to the trenches, just in front of the village of Festubert, a distance of thirteen kilometres, relieving the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons. We remained in these trenches until 6 P.M. the following evening, when we were relieved by the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, many of our fellows having to be lifted out of the trenches owing to being cramped with standing in the mud and water for so long. On each man receiving a tot of rum, we at once marched back to Béthune.... On arriving at the market square in Béthune, many men fell from sheer exhaustion. Meeting the buses again, we had some hot coffee and returned directly back to our billets, which we were very thankful to reach about 2 A.M. on the 15th of January 1915. One of the most remarkable features of this, our first time in the trenches, was the fact that we did not sustain a single casualty, although we were subjected to a continual bombardment the whole time, the Huns’ shooting being fairly good(?), but their shells were very bad, many burying themselves in the mud and failing to explode at all.” [Illustration: FESTUBERT (From the picture presented to the Regiment by Brig.-Gen. A. Symons, C.M.G.)]