Time for a bath! Much needed after spending a week un the trenches. The soliders were muddy – mud in all your crevices – up your nose – in your ears. The lice were everywhere – in your clothes in your hair and on your body. The smell of death was in your clothes. Trench foot from sloshing around in dirty cold infected water was painful. Bathing and cleaning clothes was necessary, but also a logistical problem. How do you bathe an entire battalion ? The men were now in Hersin Coupigny which was a mining town. As a result some of the mines had good bathing facilities for those who worked underground in those mines. The men were divided into companies and lined up taking turns to have a bathe. While they were doing this often their clothing was being washed and disinfected. A special treat would be when they received totally new clothing, new socks, new underwear! The month continues with the usual rotation between time in the trenches and time behind the lines. The Battalion remains in the Vimy Ridge area. Much of the month is spent in working groups. This mean solidifying and cleaning up the trenches, digging new trenches , digging tunnels with the tunnel engineering groups. This was hard dirty work. Another job is cleaning the latrines or building new latrines because the old ones have been damaged. And being on a working party did not mean you were immune to enemy fire, planes dropping bombs, or trench mortar attacks. One night a man is killed and another severely injured when they trip over an old French Mortar bomb – setting it off. More reinforcements are brought in. More medals awarded. More training done. And the month ends off with the Divisional Games which some of the soldiers attend either to participate or watch. Sports were becoming more prevalent as the war went on. It helped keep the men fit and improved moral. Popular were soccer, cricket, rugby, and baseball.
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