On the return journey we went over the ruined village of Vermelle recently taken by the French. I went through the German trenches and was much surprised to find the comfortable dug-outs of the officers were furnished with every kind of table, chair, and other luxuries. The walls had pictures hung, and there were even good lamps and clocks in niches. It all seemed so different from our own and gave me the impression that the Huns looked after their comforts far too much. Shooting was going on and numbers of shells lay unexploded, some of them being English. By permission of the French Colonel I brought away two kinds of steel loopholes out of German trenches, and eventually these were sent to G.H.Q.; but I kept a periscope. These I had not till then seen in our own Corps. The entire village was a mass of ruins, but a statuette of the Virgin near a chapel still stood on its pedestal among the debris. The Sirhind Brigade, under command of Major-General Brunker, arrived from Egypt on the 7th December, and thus at last the Lahore Division was completed. With the arrival of this Brigade and considerable drafts from India, I prepared a scheme for giving my troops as much rest as was possible; but it was short-lived, for on the 9th December the Chief of the Staff called and told me the Corps was to extend its front and take over the village of Givenchy and about a mile to the south of it from the French. I have already told what this meant to us; but there was no option, and on the 11th December we took over the trenches at Givenchy, and as far as the La Bassée-Bethune road. On the 8th December Sir John French had telegraphed thanking the Corps for a message we had sent him, and said, “I owe them a deep debt of gratitude for the splendid services they have rendered and which have proved of great value in the conduct of the campaign.” Sir John never failed to say a word at the right time. On 12th December I attended a conference at G.H.Q., and was then informed of the intentions of the Commander-in-Chief to commence an offensive on the 14th December with the Second and Third Corps in conjunction with the French on the left, with the object of reaching the line Le Touquet-Warneton-Hollebeke. The Fourth and Indian Corps, though taking no direct part in this action, were ordered to “carry out active local operations with a view to containing the enemy now in their front.” At this time the French on our right, _i.e._ next to the Indian Corps, also undertook offensive operations.