Wednesday 9th February 1916

Billets at Fort Rompu.

There was a marked improvement in the weather and, although conditions at Fort Rompu were poor, with the billets described as, “dreadful – rusting heaps of corrugated tin, draped in canvas”, spirits must have been lifted further with the news that on the 14^th the Battalion would march further back into Corps Reserve. They would not return to the front line for almost a month and, although they would not have known it at the time, this was to be the end of the Battalion’s stay in the Bois Grenier area, which had been their area of operation for almost five months since they had first arrived in France.

Pte. Arnold Freeman (see 18^th December 1915) was appointed Acting Corporal.

Pte. George Edward Western (see 16^th January) was reported by A/Sgt. Edgar Shuttleworth (see 23^rd January) and L.Cpl. Robert Holdsworth (see below) for ‘neglect of duty when orderly man’ and being ‘absent from parade at 2pm’; on the orders of Capt. James Christopher Bull MC (see 27^th August 1915) he would be confined to barracks for seven days.

Robert Holdsworth was an original member of the battalion and had been promoted Lance Corporal during training in 1914-15; other than that, I am, as yet, unable to confirm a positive identification for this man.

Pte. Robert William Buckingham (see 20^th April 1915), serving with 3DWR at North Shields, was appointed Lance Corporal.

A payment of £2 5s. 8d was authorised, being the amount outstanding in pay and allowances to the late Pte. Ellis Gill (see 26^th October 1915), who had been killed in action in October 1915; the payment would go to his father, Arthur.