All this time it was not only wet, but cold, and after Christmas it became colder until the first week in January, when heavy snow fell.  Thenceforward, until the middle of February, there was continuous frost with occasional heavy falls of snow, though generally the days and nights were fine and clear.  For several feet down, the ground was frozen hard, and digging became absolutely impossible.  There was now solid ice instead of water in the trenches, and the front line sentries found their task a particularly cold one.  Fortunately by this time the trench cook-house was not only an established thing but had become a very successful affair, and four times a day hot meals were carried in tanks and food containers from Battalion Headquarters to the front line.  For this purpose the rectangular tanks from the cooks’ wagons were used, being carried by two men, on a wooden framework or stretcher.  Along a road or up a well made communication trench this was a comparatively light task, but to carry a tank full of hot tea over slippery shell holes and through knee-deep mud was a difficult matter, and on more than one occasion a platoon lost its hot drink at night through the disappearance of the carriers into some shell hole.  The wonderful thing was that both tea-less platoon and drenched carriers would laugh over it all.

Christmas Day was spent in trenches.  We were relieved in the afternoon by the 4th Battalion, who had their festivities on Christmas eve, and went back to Souastre, where the following day we, too, had our dinner.  Pigs had been bought and killed, and we all gorged ourselves on roast pork and plum pudding, washing them down with beer—­a very satisfactory performance.  There were also the usual games and Company dinners, and we all spent a very enjoyable few days.  Later on we managed to arrange a Battalion concert which was a tremendous success, and voted by all a most excellent evening; the “star” turn was Colonel Jones, who gave a recitation.

The weather made raids and active operations impossible, and though we made all preparations for a rifle grenade demonstration to assist a Staffordshire raid on New Year’s night, this had to be cancelled on account of the snow.  Patrols, however, still continued to tour No Man’s Land in the hopes of finding a stray Boche, or encountering a Boche patrol.  In front of Essarts the lines were so far apart that there was plenty of room for a small pitched battle, and night after night Lieuts.  Pearson, Creed, Poynor, and others visited such familiar haunts as the “Osier Bed,” “Thistle Patch,” “Lonely Tree,” and other well-known places.  The first to meet the enemy was Lieut.  Pearson, who came upon a small party in the “Thistle Patch,” who made off rapidly back to their lines.  Our patrol used their rifles, but, though they hit one of the enemy, failed to take a prisoner, and for a week or two the Boche did not show himself.  Then on the 10th January, 2nd Lieut.  Creed, with