- day, a congratulatory telegram was sent to him; and "a
great quantity of material was collected out of which huts for the men could be built." These were frail affairs of straw and twig, half dug in, half built out, of the nearest banks, or placed under the lee of any available shelter. The very fabric of them has long since been overlaid with strata of fresh wreckage and the twig roofs and sides are rotted black under the grass or ploughed in.
The month closes with the note that, as it was a very bright moonlight night, the Battalion's usual relief of the Coldstream was "carried out up the communication-trenches." Some men still recall that first clumsy trench-relief.
October 1 was spent in perfecting communication-trenches and shelters, and "the Brigadier came up in the morning and was taken round the trenches." Two officers were sent to Chavonne to meet the 5th Brigade—one to bring the Worcesters to the Battalion's trenches, the other to show the Connaught Rangers their billets in Soupir. The 3rd Coldstream marched out of Soupir and took up the line to the left of the 2nd Grenadiers near Vailly, and next day, 2nd October, No. 1 Company of the Irish Guards dug a connecting-trench between those two. Otherwise, for the moment, life was smooth.
It may be noted for the instruction of generations to come that some of the Reservists grumbled at orders not to talk or smoke in the trenches, as that drew fire; and that a newly appointed platoon-officer, when he had admonished them officially, fell them out and informed them unofficially that, were there any more trouble, he would, after the C.O. had dealt with the offenders, take them on for three rounds "boxing in public." Peace and goodwill returned at once.
On the 3rd October, a platoon was despatched to help the Royal Engineers in the construction of a road across a new bridge they had put up between Soupir and Chavonne. The Battalion relieved the 3rd Coldstream in its new position three-quarters of a mile east
