vity. The mine shafts, of which there were about
three per company frontage, were each manned by two men who acted as
listeners. As the front lines were only about twenty-five yards apart
there was a considerable exchange of grenades.

No cooking was allowed in the trenches, as the smoke which would have been
occasioned by cooking would only have encouraged enemy fire. Therefore
ration and hot food parties had to go four times a day along a
communication trench called Boyau Maison Rouge, one and a half miles long,
and which was not duckboarded. After heavy rain it became very muddy, and
the men cut down their trousers which led to the adoption of shorts
throughout. Hosetops were improvised by cutting the feet off socks and
later they were bought. The colour ranged at first from light heliotrope
to flatman's blue, but later was standardized as salmon pink. The expense
of providing these hosetops was a heavy drain on any available funds, but
fortunately friends of the Battalion came to the rescue.

On relief from the Cambrin trenches on the 7th July the Battalion spent a
little over a fortnight in Brigade and Divisional Reserves at Sailly
Labourse and the Faubourg d'Arras in Bethune respectively. On the 25th it
was in line at Vermelles. This sector was quiet except in that portion
which was opposite the Hohenzollern Redoubt, from which huge aerial
torpedoes were fired.

August was spent doing tours of duty in Annequin and Vermelles. During the
last tour in Vermelles the whole Battalion assembled every night in no
man's land and successfully dug under fire jumping-off trenches for the
forthcoming operations, the casualties being comparatively few, owing to
the speed with which the men dug.

During the first three weeks in September, the Battalion was out of the
line and spent most of the time at Burbure, a quiet little village outside
Lillers, where the men enjoyed a period of peace well removed from the
battle zone. The training was devoted almost entirely to the practice of
the attack preparatory to the impending fight.

During the summer a horse show took place in the First Division, and the
"Ninth" secured all the prizes for mules, the first prize for a field
kitchen and two jumping prizes, thus obtaining the second place in the
Division for the total number of marks gained. This was a signal honour
for a Territorial unit, and perhaps came as a surprise to some of the
Regular soldiers, who thought that they were "t