On January the first some shelling and artillery duels took place, otherwise it was calm.
On Saturday, January the second, we were relieved by the 1st Brigade, leaving about thirty men on barricade guard on the main La Bassée Road. We went back into Cambrin.
On Sunday the third we left for Beuvry, three kilometres to our rear and one and a half kilometres from Bethune. We arrived there at 6.30 p.m., and went into billets. A lot of our men were sent back from here with trench-feet, which we then called frost-bitten feet; they were the first cases we had of it. On Saturday, January the second, ninety-four N.C.O.'s and men left us, and next day, Sunday, thirty-four more went off.
On Monday the fourth we rested, enjoying a bathe and change of linen at the Girls' College in Bethune.
On Tuesday the fifth we again left for Cambrin and relieved the King's Royal Rifles from the trenches, Major Powell, who had joined us at Hazebruck, going away sick. We arrived at Quinchy at 5.30 p.m., and the Regiment took over the trenches in front of that village, two Companies occupying the front line, one Company being in support behind the first brick-stack and the other in reserve behind the other two brick-stacks, whilst Headquarter Company took over and guarded a culvert running from the road under the railway-line to the canal bank.
That night and during the next day little happened beyond artillery duels. Around this sector of the line snipers were very prevalent.
Thursday the seventh was a wet day; nothing occurred with the exception of a German mistaking his way in the early hours of the morning and walking into our machine-gun emplacement. He came in with two cans, one with hot water and the other with hot tea. The boys, after making him taste a little of each, took possession of them for their own use. On being taken down the communication trench this German had the audacity to remark that our trenches were very dirty—not nearly so clean as theirs, as they had working parties cleaning up each day.
On Friday the eighth there was a great deal of shelling on both sides between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., and also a heavy cannonade and rifle-fire during the afternoon, but no attack.
On Saturday the ninth the part of Headquarter Company doing guard at the culvert were relieved, as they were no longer required, and were put on fatigue duty, carrying all necessary things to the firing line, to save the men in the firing line from becoming continually wet through walking up and down the communication trench. These men continued at this work until the Regiment was relieved, retiring at night into a cellar at Cambrin to dry their clothes as best they might. About 1 p.m. there was an hour's bombardment of the enemy's lines.