General de Lisle went personally over the whole of the line held by his Division. The 1st Cavalry Brigade was in the front trenches for the first five days, the 2nd Brigade in reserve. Then the 2nd Brigade took over the trenches and the 1st Brigade came back, for the second five days, to the dug-outs. At points in the line the trenches were knee-deep and sometimes even waist-deep with cold mud and water. The amount of manual labour required to get them into better shape was enormous. New trenches had to be dug, the old parapets strengthened, the trenches drained, and all the while certain mining work must be pushed on at a rapid rate. In some parts of the line the parapets of sandbags had become so thin that a Mauser bullet could plough through them easily. The German snipers were at one place only thirty yards distant. The drainage of the worst bits of trench, and the laying of a sort of corduroy road from point to point, soon made the trenches much more habitable. De Lisle was most thorough. Only a couple of casualties occurred when the 1st Brigade "took over," in spite of the constant sniping. Careful preparations of foot baths and relays of dry socks saved the Division from the epidemic of "foot-casualties," from which some other divisions had suffered heavily. A dozen casualties per day were inevitable from shells and snipers. Those who had to "go up" with food and ammunition had to cross a dangerous zone, a certain toll being taken day and night, in some localities. Inspecting the trench-line, when the Division had occupied it but the night before, was a precarious business. De Lisle and General Briggs were going over the ground when a German sniper but fifteen to twenty yards distant opened fire. Lieutenant Bell-Irving, General Briggs' A.D.C., received a nasty wound in the hip. He fell in the deep mud. Colonel "Tommy" Pitman, of the 11th Hussars, jumped out into the centre of the trench, and strove to lift Bell-Irving clear, and get him behind the protection of a transept. The bullets flew about the Colonel, two cutting clean through his clothing, one on either side of his body, but he escaped unhurt, and pulled Bell-Irving into safety. [Illustration: The Grande Place at Ypres and the Cloth Hall, March, 1915] [Illustration: The choir of the ruined Ypres Cathedral] But the trouble was by no means over. A sharp fire was kept up by the Hun snipers, which prevented the removal of Bell-Irving to the dressing station. Captain Moriarty of the R.A.M.C. came up at considerable risk, and advised that the wounded officer be brought back at the earliest possible moment. There were no means of doing this save to construct a traverse of sandbags, behind which Bell-Irving could be carried. The work must be done under the heavy sniping fire. The troopers of the 11th Hussars at once set about the work with a will, and soon accomplished it, but not before a private had been killed and a sergeant wounded by the German marksmen.