The same evening we got orders to leave the trenches, and after a thoroughly unpleasant tramp, in heavy rain and thick darkness over the slippery chalk tracks, which were guess-work to most of us, we arrived soon after midnight at Mazingarbe, which for dirt, damp, and general cheerlessness, almost rivalled our never-to-be-forgotten billets at Bac-St. Maur. So ended a beastly, tiring, and, for all we ever learned, quite purposeless expedition.
After a short meal and much needed rest we felt fit for anything, and made light of the trek on the early morning of October 6th, to our rest billets, which we found at Fouquières, a nice clean little village about a mile west of Béthune. Here we found ourselves, for a short time, in peace and something approaching luxury.
Our move South had brought us into the First Army (General Haig) and XI Corps. (Lt.-General Haking), which had been busy in the recent fighting, and we now learned definitely for the first time that in the further fighting that was shortly to take place we were to play a prominent part. On Saturday, October 9th, preliminary orders and plans were issued, and we learned that our task was to be the capture of the "Hohenzollern Redoubt" and "Fosse 8," an admirably constructed scale model of which had been made on the ground outside Divisional Headquarters at Gosnay, where Officers and N.C.O.'s (and stray inhabitants) spent some time in a careful and interested examination of it.
In addition, a somewhat hurried reconnaissance of the position itself was made by Col. Fowler and the Company Commanders from our trenches in front of Vermelles, from which the attack was to be made. In the short space of a couple of hours they endeavoured to get a working knowledge of the maze of communication trenches, and the hostile ground over which, if all went well, we should have to advance. Sunday was spent in Church Parade, and in going again through the preliminary orders and plans, and in the afternoon the Corps Commander interviewed the Officers of the Division at Divisional Headquarters. We were then told something more as to the reason and general plan of the attack, and were informed that we should be supported by the heaviest concentration of artillery yet known in the war--400 guns of all calibres,--that all contingencies had been provided for, and that in spite of the strength of the position, we should probably encounter very little opposition before reaching our objective.