We had Hallowe’en before the battle, it was the last day of October, when all the officers gathered together and we had something to eat and there was a lot of heavy drinking and a sing-song. The Pipe Sergeant Major was brought in to play the pipes and they are deafening in a small barn and when he had finished, the Colonel said ‘What will you have to drink?’ And he said ‘I will have a crème de menthe’. And he held out his mug and they filled it up with crème de menthe and he drank it all in one draught.