The killed included the ever-popular Lance-Corporal Tommy Dodge, a great personality both in the Civil Service Rifles and in the Civil Service Rugby Football Club.
Of the survivors, mention must be made of Corporal F. H. Chinn, who had been sent with five men to establish a bomb store in the second German trench. As the five became casualties, he made three journeys up the side of the Double Crassier alone, carrying each time as many bombs as he could collect.
After Loos there was a short rest at Verquin and Nœux-les-Mines, where, on the 8th October, the Battalion lost the valuable services of Captain H. H. Kemble, who became second in command of the 23rd Battalion. As officer in command of “D” Company, Captain Kemble had won the admiration and respect of all ranks who served with him, and who were genuinely sorry to lose him.
The winter campaign of 1915-1916 now set in in earnest, and from this time onwards there was a long struggle against the rain, mud, and trenches that were continually falling in.
A fleeting visit was paid to the neighbourhood of Hulluch, where the Battalion was in reserve during the struggle on the 13th October, and narrowly escaped the fate which befel a Battalion of the Black Watch who went down in attempting the impossible feat of cutting their way, under very heavy machine-gun and artillery fire, through enemy wire of incredible thickness.
On the 28th October, “A” and “C” Companies had the honour of representing the Battalion at an inspection by His Majesty the King in a field near the village of Haillicourt.
Soon after their return the weather went from bad to worse. Everywhere men were huddled on the firestep with just a ground-sheet rigged over a couple of rifles placed across the trench--the “shelter” thus formed carefully collecting and depositing the rain-water down the neck of the passer by! On every ration fatigue to the “lone tree” you floundered up to the knees in mud and water. Private Beatty, of “A” Company, soothed his feelings one night on slipping head first into a slimy shell-hole with the following impromptu:--
“Mis-ry unspeakable, Horrible, shriekable, Groundsheets unleakable, I don’t think. Rain never ending, On us descending, Simply heartrending. Gawd----!”