In the St. Elie sector we had been three months almost without an incident of any importance; we were only six weeks in Cambrin, and every tour contained some item of interest.  We started disastrously.  On the night after relief Lieut.  Watherston was visiting “B” Company’s posts in the centre sector, when a party of the enemy crept up to and suddenly rushed the Lewis Gun Section he had just visited.  Lieut.  Watherston turned back, drew his revolver, and rushed into the fight, but was himself shot through the head and killed instantaneously.  He had fired three shots with his revolver, but was unable to stop the enemy who, having wounded the sentry and blown the N.C.O. off the firestep with a bomb, now escaped, taking the Lewis Gun with them.  The N.C.O., Cpl.  Watts, got up and gave chase, but lost touch with the enemy amongst the craters, and after being nearly killed himself had to return empty-handed.  Our predecessors in the line seemed to have made no effort to wire this part of the line at all, presumably thinking the line of craters a sufficient protection.  A few nights later 2nd Lieut.  Boarland reconnoitred the whole area with a patrol, and found that not only had the Boche got a well-worn track across No Man’s Land between two craters, but close to the raided post had fitted up a small dug-out with a blanket and a coat in it.  This would, of course, have been impossible had the previous occupants of the line done any patrolling; we suffered through their gross negligence.

Towards the end of the same tour, the enemy made another very similar attempt against our extreme right pasts held by “A” Company.  L/Cpl.  Beale and Pte.  Foster were with their gun on the parapet, when they were suddenly rushed by three or four of the enemy who had crept close up to them, and were on top of them before they could open fire.  L/Cpl.  Beale used his fists on a German who seized him round the throat, but was then shot in the chest and fell backwards on the rest of the section who were coming to help.  The Germans tried to carry off the gun, but Foster put up a fight, and they dropped it just outside the trench.  However, one of them managed to knock Foster on the head, and, before help could arrive, he was carried off as a prisoner.  Once again we suffered through the carelessness of our predecessors, for in this case, too, there was no protective barbed wire.  We spent every night of the tour wiring hard, but could not of course finish the whole sector in five days.

The tour also contained a very severe Artillery and Trench Mortar bombardment, which seriously damaged our left and centre trenches.  But more serious than this was the loss to “B” Company of L/Cpl.  J.T.  Pawlett, one of the best Lewis Gun N.C.O.’s in the Battalion, who was mortally wounded during the shelling.  A few days later we lost another excellent Lewis Gun N.C.O., L/Cpl.  Stredder, of “D” Company, who went to England wounded, fortunately not very seriously.