The 1/4th Londons now embarked on a course of very severe training under the immediate supervision of the Inspector of Infantry, Brigadier-General Oxley. This was, indeed, a strenuous three weeks, with breakfasts at 7.30 a.m. and dinners at 5 p.m., the hours between being occupied in tactical exercises. Usually a march of five miles in each direction to and from the training ground was involved and the exercise itself was almost invariably the "Attack in Open Warfare." In every conceivable formation, over every conceivable sort of ground, did the Battalion attack every one of the villages within reach of Blendecques, till at last it was entirely weary of the attack in any shape or form! But the grounding in field work thus obtained was excellent and so completely were the lessons rubbed into the mind of every member of the Battalion that this wearisome training bore excellent fruit as we shall see later.
Once or twice a slight variation of training was obtained in work on a new reserve line of trenches then being constructed east of St Omer. This work was carried out under R.E. supervision. The design of these trenches was strange. Their like was indeed never met with in any sector of the line held by the Battalion in the whole of its war service, and we can only be thankful that this reserve line never came into active use.
Throughout the training period the weather was continuously wet and cold, and these adverse conditions, added to the long hours without food, imposed a serious physical strain on all, and the news that the Battalion had been passed fit to join a brigade was therefore received by all ranks with extreme satisfaction.
At Blendecques the Battalion was joined by Lieut. A. Hurd, R.A.M.C., medical officer, vice Captain Casey to hospital. 2/Lieut. E. W. Bottomley was also evacuated to hospital.
On the 19th February the 1/4th Londons left the many good friends they had made in Blendecques and marched through Wittes, where it halted for the night, to Ham-en-Artois, arriving at 12.30 p.m. on the 20th, and joined the Ferozepore Brigade of the Lahore Division.
The Indian Corps (Lieut.-Gen. Sir James Willcocks, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., K.C.S.I., D.S.O.) had arrived in France in the preceding October and comprised the 3rd (Lahore) and 7th (Meerut) Divisions, the former including the following units:
LAHORE DIVISION Major General H. D'U. Keary, C.B., D.S.O. Divisional Cavalry 15th Lancers. Engineers 20th and 21st Sappers and Miners. 34th Sikh Pioneers. Jullundur Brigade—Brig.-Gen. E. P. Strickland, C.M.G., D.S.O. 1st Manchesters. 1/4th Suffolks. 40th Pathans. 47th Sikhs. 59th Scinde Rifles (F.F.). Sirhind Brigade—Brig.-Gen. W. R. Walker, V.C. 1st Highland Light Infantry. 4th King's Liverpools. 15th Ludhiana Sikhs. 1/1st Gurkha Rifles. 1/4th Gurkha Rifles. Ferozepore Brigade—Brig.-Gen. R. G. Egerton, C.B. 1st Connaught Rangers. 1/4th Londons. 9th Bhopals. 57th Wilde's Rifles (F.F.). 129th Baluchis (Duke of Connaught's Own).
During the months of December and January the Indian Corps had been heavily engaged in a local operation which had raged with terrific intensity between the small village of Givenchy and the extreme right of our line; but our struggles to press forward along the canal to La Bassée had been checked by a particularly vigorous defence on the part of the enemy. The casualties suffered by the Brigades of the Indian Corps in the fighting had been so severe that it was necessary to withdraw some of them for a time from the line for the purpose of rest and reorganisation.
On joining its Brigade the strength of the 1/4th Londons was 25 officers and 828 other ranks. The Battalion was fortunate in being posted to the Division at this juncture as it had an opportunity before going into action of becoming acquainted with its neighbouring battalions with whom it was destined to share the fortunes of war during the ensuing eleven months, and of gaining some insight into the ancient, but at that date recently revived, sciences of bombing and trench mortar work. And here let us remark for the benefit of those members of the Battalion who joined the Service at a later stage and found Mills Bombs and the Stokes Mortar ready for their use, that in February 1915 the only bombs in use were those of the "jam-tin" variety, that is to say, were roughly constructed out of old tins by the troops who were to use them, filled with explosives, plugged with clay, and fused with ordinary time fuse which had to be ignited before the bomb was thrown; while the trench mortar of the day is perhaps best described as a glorified rainwater pipe bound with copper wire, and which threw a "jam-tin" bomb and was quite as dangerous to the team which manned it as to the Germans.
With their unfailing adaptability to circumstances the men of the Battalion rapidly became friends with the Indian troops whom they held in the greatest admiration. The Gurkhas in particular seemed to exercise an irresistible attraction for the men of London, who were especially impressed with the Gurkhas' playful way of throwing their murderous Kukri knives. Indeed, to such lengths did this admiration—which took the form of imitation—lead them that a Battalion order was very quickly necessary to the effect that "the game known as 'Gurkhas' played with unsheathed bayonets must cease forthwith!"