The infantry were fully occupied in building a continuous front line and communication trenches. This front line itself was covered by detached posts and by groups thrown as far forward as the river Lys and including Basseville. The main line of defence, however, was the support line. Owing to the flat and low-lying nature of the country it was not possible to make habitable “bivvies” in either the support or the front line, and the troops garrisoning them were withdrawn, after a 4 days' tour of duty, to the more comfortable dugouts of the subsidiary line. Much work was necessary throughout, and especially north of the Douve on the new battalion sector which ran up to Steignast Farm, east of Messines. Here there were no communication trenches and practically no fire trenches. The front line posts themselves lay in converted shellholes on high ground about an isolated windmill on the road from Warneton to Gapaard, and formed a marked salient with the enemy on 3 sides. These posts and the rear trenches generally were alike waist-deep in mud.

While visiting these outposts in the early morning of 7th August, General Earl Johnston was killed instantaneously by a sniper's bullet. Trained in the British Army, a rnan of commanding presence and wide experience, he had rendered invaluable services to the New Zealand Force since its formation in New Zealand, and throughout its campaigns in Egypt Gallipoli and France, His death was felt moreover as a personal loss by all who were aware of his manly character and robust straightforwardness.{117} He was succeeded in command of the Rifle Brigade by Lt.-Col. (now Brig.-General) R. Young. The command of 1st Canterbury was bestowed on Lt.-Col. King, whose vacated appointment in the Pioneer Battalion was filled by Major (now Lt.-Col.) C. G. Saxby, D.S.O. General Young was not to hold his new post for long. Two days later, near the spot where his predecessor had met his death, he was seriously wounded by a sniper. The command of the brigade was given temporarily to Lt.-Col. A. E. Stewart of the 2nd Rifles.

The work of consolidation was very much hampered by the wretched weather conditions of the first part of August, which were at the moment affecting so disastrously Sir Douglas Haig's plans further north. Day after day rain fell continuously. The sector, already largely water-logged, became a muddy and deplorable swamp, worse than “the Somme.” The conditions in the trenches were miserable. Carrying parties and stretcher-bearers preferred to risk enemy fire and did much of their work in the open. Thus when an exploding 5.9-in. shell fell on the 2nd Canterbury front line at dawn on 15th August and grievously wounded Capt. Morrison, whose fine work at the Au Chasseur Cabaret was noted in the preceding chapter, his stretcher-bearers carried him overland to the dressing station, where he died. All the way the little party was escorted by 2 German aeroplanes, who flying at a low height refrained from firing. Forethought and care could not prevent the men in the trenches from living and sleeping in wet clothes. The rate of sickness increased correspondingly.

In addition to this wastage many casualties were caused by the German artillery, which maintained abnormal activity. Armentières Nieppe and Ploegsteert, and all our back areas, were continuously and heavily shelled. The last remaining civilians, who had endured so much, were at last constrained to evacuate their reeling houses. The baths at Nieppe were destroyed by shell-fire, and the Division temporarily deprived of their immense benefit to comfort health and morale. On our posts and front areas, commanded by the towering observation posts in the Warneton buildings, the shelling raged persistently, and in the first fortnight in August from this cause alone the Division lost the equivalent of a battalion. Gas fell for the most part in the back areas and about the batteries and round Hyde Park Corner and Hill 63, compelling on several occasions the wearing of respirators by reliefs marching up to the trenches or by men working at the quartermasters' stores or wagon lines some miles in rear.

The enemy aeroplanes continued by day to harass the forward troops and battery positions and by night to bomb the rear villages, considerably increasing the frequency of their visits and widening the radius of their operations. On 9th August the 2nd Infantry Brigade Headquarters lost several horses, and on the 11th the 1st Machine Gun Company and 2nd Wellington stables were wrecked and nearly 100 animals destroyed. Our own guns were even more aggressive than the German. Warneton Deulemont and other villages were reduced to heaps of ruined roofless walls, gaps in which revealed the more substantial concrete dugouts which they screened. Co-operation was given to the attacks in the north, particularly to that of 16th August on Langemarck, by artillery and machine gun barrages and violent counter-battery activity. Frélinghien also was on that date drenched in gas and liquid oil.

While about Basseville both artilleries remained active, there was now little infantry fighting. Both sides were engrossed in consolidation. A single effort at a raid by the Germans was summarily repulsed. Our patrols, however, were continually active towards Warneton, along the Lys and down the Douve valley, where some encounters took place with enemy parties. Over the Lys the enemy made no attempt to throw bridges or force a crossing, and aggressive sniping by our patrols denied him the right of moving freely in front of his own lines on the southern bank. Towards the end of the month a notable achievement was performed by a 3rd Wellington{118} party under the leadership of Sergt. S. S. Pennefather. In the afternoon Pennefather had swum across the Lys and reconnoitred the enemy positions. Crossing again in the evening for further exploration he found 2 rafts hidden among the rushes below the enemy bank. One he cut adrift, the other he converted, by means of German signalling wire, into a ferry. When darkness fell, he led a party of 7 men to the river. 4 were left on the tow rope to guard the passage and cover the return. The other 3 he took with him. Penetrating into the enemy's country the party heard talking, and speed a group of Germans in a shellhole. They crept towards it but were noticed, and the enemy threw stick-bombs and opened rifle fire. Pennefather received a serious wound in the wrist, but in the excitement of the moment scarcely felt the pain. He and his men flung their bombs and rushed. Four dim figures rose up from the shellhole, making off into the darkness.

Two were killed; the others escaped. In the bottom of the shellhole was found a fifth badly wounded German. No papers were on the dead, so the party collected the enemy rifles and lifted their wounded prisoner to carry him to our lines. He died, however, on the way. The party recrossed the river on the ferry without further misadventure. For this enterprise Pennefather received the coveted D.C.M.

In the intensity of the enemy's artillery fire there was a marked decrease in the last 10 days of the month, due to the withdrawal of guns for his defence ill the north. The number of active positions recorded by Sound Rangers and Flash Spotters dropped very suddenly, and the result was reflected in the Corps casualty roll:—

With his reduced groups, however, counter-battery work was continued persistently even in the latter part of the month, and several New Zealand guns were destroyed, but in the trenches and forward area conditions were becoming normal as early as 17th August, when the 2nd Brigade was relieved in the centre of the line by the 1st Brigade and withdrew into reserve. On the 21st it began to move to the La Motte area. The rest of the Division was not to be long in following it. Arrangements were already under way for the 8th Division to take over the right and centre subsectors and for the 3rd Australians to occupy the Rifle Brigade subsector on the Douve. The latter move began on the 22nd. Owing to the proximity and activity of the enemy opposite the Windmill on the Warneton-Gapaard road, the Rifle Brigade had experienced the utmost difficulty in the construction of their front line, but the ground was of particular tactical importance, and it was essential that our grip of it should be strengthened. By untiring efforts the work had been completed. The posts were now connected with each other and the whole with the support line, and movement under cover was possible throughout the entire subsector.

During the 21 days that the Rifle Brigade had been in the line it had sustained casualties not less heavy than those of a serious engagement. 5 officers had been killed, 14 wounded, and 1 was missing,{119}  and the casualties among other ranks amounted to 60 killed, 350 wounded, and 2 missing. On relief by the Australians the brigade moved to the La Crèche area in tactical support to the 57th Division, who were holding the familiar trenches about Fleurbaix. The 8th Division completed the reliefs of the 1st Brigade on the 27th and of the 4th Brigade on the 31st. As these 2 brigades were withdrawn, they marched back to the Corps rear area. After their 3 months in the trenches the 4th Brigade, burdened with full packs, blankets, steel helmets, and other accoutrements, were severely tried by the 17-mile march.

From these staging billets the Division, less the artillery and the Rifle Brigade, proceeded by train at the end of the month to the Second Army reserve area at Lumbres in the Aa valley west of St. Omer. Units were accompanied by their travelling kitchens and water carts, but the remainder of the transport trekked by road. The last of the artillery moved out of the line on 6th September and rested for a few days in the neighbourhood of Morbecque, whence they presently rejoined the Division. The rifle Brigade was left in the forward area for work on cable communications under the orders of the Second army. At the end of August the 4th Australian Division was relieved by IX. Corps troops and transferred to I. Anzac. Thereupon II. Anzac Headquarters handed over the command of their sector to the VIII. Corps and moved to Lumbres.