Great Britain. The young officers snatched their few hours' leave at home, loyally told their people that all was going well, returned—"to a most interesting lecture on the Battle of Neuve Chapelle," delivered at La Gorgue by a Divisional Staff Officer, and to an inspection of the 1st Guards Brigade by Lord Kitchener on a vile wet day when they were all soaked to the skin (February 10), and "to the usual routine in very poor weather."
Lord Desmond FitzGerald, being now second in command by seniority, resigned his adjutancy and was succeeded by Lieutenant T. E. G. Nugent; No. 2, Captain Blake's, Company was commanded by Major the Hon. A. C. S. Chichester, fresh from home, and Father S. Knapp, their priest, who had been transferred to the 1st London Irish, was followed by Father J. Lane-Fox from the same Battalion. Of the six Fathers who served the two battalions, two—Fathers Gwynne and S. Knapp, D.S.O., M.C.—were killed, one—Father F. M. Browne, M.C.—wounded twice, and one—Father F. S. Browne, M.C.—wounded once.
On the face of it nothing could have been quieter and more domestic than their daily life round Merville, and after a week of it they were moved (February 16) north towards Steenvoorde, in a hurricane of wind and rain, to the neighbourhood of Poperinghe, on the Ypres-Poperinghe-Dunkirk road, and a camp of tents, mostly blown down, and huts connected, for which small ease they were grateful, by duck-boards. This brought them into the Second Army area and into the Fourteenth Corps under Lord Cavan, precisely as that officer had hoped. He explained to them there was "a small German offensive" on the left of the line here, and that "if it came to anything" the Brigade might be wanted.
The "small offensive" had opened on the 13th with a furious bombardment of the extreme southern end of the Ypres Salient between the Ypres-Comines Canal and Ypres-Comines railway, a little to the south of Hill 60, followed by the springing of five
