​"Sport In This Neighbourhood Was Excellent"

As Victor Farmer readied himself to take his men to join the 1st Battalion, the Battalion itself was in static positions in the line around Butkova.
The men remained in the front line longer on the Macedonian Front than their counterparts on the Western Front, due to the longer periods of inactivity. The daily routine was set and like the first year of the war in Flanders, there was an element of 'live and let live' between the two opposing forces.
​Young enterprising officers took out bombing parties on patrol, occasionally bagging a prisoner, but more importantly perhaps, a brace of Woodcock!
The Regimental History noted; "Sport in this neighbourhood was excellent, the woodcock flying down from the hills across the Battalion lines every evening at duck. In the morning large flocks of geese, both white-fronted and grey-legged, flew along the line and many were brought down by rifle and lewis gun fire before this agreeable practice was forbidden".
As the weather took a turn for the worst in early January, the inactivity of the front line continued. For officers, there became a feeling of the pre-war days on Foreign Service. A day with the local hunt or shoot, followed by drinks in the Mess, however, these unofficial patrols sometimes met with injury as the Regimental History noted; "Another 'patrol' spending the weekend at Butkova lake, enjoyed excellent sport, the bag consisting of sixty duck, of many different species, twenty geese, besides teal, snipe, woodcock and a few partridges, and a pheasant. The patrol's casualties only consisted of one officer, wounded in the nose with No. 8 shot".

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