On Saturday the sixteenth we fell in, in the afternoon, to return to the trenches; but before we went the Brigadier gave us a few words, saying: "To-morrow, Sunday, January the seventeenth, is the Kaiser's birthday, so be on your guard, as we are expecting an attack in honour of it." This attack did not mature: the day was one of the quietest I had experienced in the trenches. A mistake had been made: the Kaiser's birthday is the twenty-seventh of January. On Monday the eighteenth we were again relieved by the 2nd Royal Sussex, and returned to Annequin. Tuesday the nineteenth we spent in resting, going into the trenches again on Wednesday the twentieth, again relieving the 2nd Royal Sussex, who took our billets at Annequin. On Thursday the twenty-first the whole Brigade was relieved by the 1st Brigade; we went to Bethune, where the 1st Brigade had just completed eight days' rest. I was then on the staff of billeting orderlies, and helped to find billets at that town. It was a very unenviable berth, as the majority of French people objected to have soldiers billeted on them, and our Officers were often very dissatisfied with the billets we found for them. We settled down to what we thought was to be an eight-days' rest; but early on Monday morning, January the twenty-fifth, the enemy began to shell Bethune--the first occasion on which it was shelled. The Brigade got the order to stand to, and moved out of Bethune once more for the trenches, after having had only three days' rest out of our eight. The report was circulated that the enemy had broken through on the right of La Bassée canal, at the brickfields at Quinchy. It was true; they had got as far as Quinchy church, and had penetrated the village itself, only to be blown back by the fierceness of our artillery fire, after which we delivered a counter-attack, going up in support to the Highland Light Infantry 5th Brigade 2nd Division, who were then operating around that district in conjunction with the 1st Division, and also in reserve to the 3rd Brigade. We did not on this occasion succeed in retaking all our old trenches; we lost one of the three the enemy had succeeded in taking, and we lost one brick-stack. Our armoured train was in action, and did great work in keeping the enemy back whilst reinforcements were brought up; but we were unfortunate in losing the engine-driver, a Belgian, who stopped a fragment of shell with his head: the naval men in charge of the train buried him with honours, firing the last volley over his grave. That night we returned to Beuvry, and stood to in case of another assault.