heard passing cheerily up the length of the column. Two or three more
shells passed over, but none burst near the Battalion.

Reaching the top of the hill to the east of the city and leaving the
white walls of Potijze Château on the left, the Battalion turned off the
road and filed into the G.H.Q. line, a Battalion of the Shropshire Light
Infantry climbing out to make room. This trench was of the breastwork
type, and a novelty to the men whose idea of a trench was a ditch below
the ground level. The dispositions of the Battalion were as follows: A
Company were on the south side of the Potijze road and the remainder on
the north side, with B Company on the right, D Company in the centre, and
C Company on the left. The machine-gun section was with D Company.
Transport lines were established just behind the Château near to a
Canadian Battery. The position was unfortunate, for the section came
under heavy shell fire and had several men and horses hit.

Sunday, the 25th April, was the first day spent by the Battalion in the
trenches. There was a considerable amount of shelling, but fortunately
the Battalion in the trenches did not suffer. In the evening, as it got
dark, the Battalion moved out of the trench and, forming up on the road
which it had left the previous night, marched in fours for about a mile
to Velorenhoek village, which was then almost intact. There the Battalion
came under the orders of the 85th Infantry Brigade, and halted. All ranks
slept for some hours on the roadside, or in the fields, gardens or
cottages close to the road. Before dawn the Brigadier ordered the
Battalion to vacate the village, and the column moved a few hundred yards
up the road to the east. Here the Companies left the road and the men
improved with their entrenching tools the little cover in the form of
ditches and trenches which was to be found, and then lay down. Throughout
this and the succeeding days the men were in marching order with full