On the 10th we marched to Gorenflos, and the following day were taken by lorries to billets in Candas, where, with an East wind, we could occasionally hear the distant sounds of gunfire for the first time for two months.  Our new area we found was full of preparation for something; what the exact nature of this something might be we did not know.  Several large railways and dumps were being built, new roads made, and here and there with great secrecy big concrete gun platforms were laid.  Each day we sent large numbers to work, mostly on the railways, and once more we heard the words “Big Push.”  We were always living on the verge of the Big Push, and many times in 1915 had thought that it had started—­at Neuve Chapelle, Givenchy, Loos—­only to give up hope when these battles stagnated after a day or two.  Now there were preparations going forward again, this time apparently on a much larger scale than we had ever seen before, so we felt justified once more in hoping for the great event.  Curiously enough the possibilities of a Boche big push were never considered, and everyone of us was firmly convinced that, except perhaps for a blow at Ypres, offensive action on the part of the enemy was out of the question.  This spirit animated all our work, which was consequently very different from our opponents.  Our trenches always had a we-shall-not-stay-here-long air about them, his were built to resist to the last man.  It was the same in training and in billets, we unconsciously considered ourselves an advancing army, and thereby, though we may not have realized it, we ourselves supplied the finest possible stimulant to our moral.

The IIIrd.  Army (Gen. Allenby), to which we now belonged, introduced at this time the Army School—­an important innovation, shortly taken up by all the other Armies.  This School, first commanded by Col.  Kentish—­afterwards Commandant of the Senior Aldershot School—­aimed at training junior officers to be Company Commanders, who owing to casualties were now hard to find.  The course, which lasted five weeks, consisted of drill, tactical exercises, physical training, musketry, bayonet fighting and bombing, lectures on esprit de corps—­in fact everything that a Company Commander should know, but many things that in trench warfare had been forgotten.  The Instructors were always up-to-date, and the best use was at once made of any of the latest inventions, while the school also kept a very efficient “Liaison” between all parts of the Army.  Students from one Division would exchange latest schemes, ruses, and devices with others from another part of the line, and so no valuable lessons were lost or known to a few only.  Our first students to this school were Capt.  Ward Jackson, who was in charge of “A” Company, and Capt.  G.W.  Allen, the latter for a special Adjutant’s refresher course.  After these, all the Company Commanders went in turn, first to Flixecourt, and later to Auxi le Chateau, whither the school moved in the early summer.  There were similar courses for senior N.C.O.’s, which were of the utmost value.