The doctors would not let their patient escape their clutches until mid-January. For a few days after his return to the platoon not much happened. Then on the 20th he and his men moved up to the front line by the chalk-pits at Loos, and for the next week had ‘a very eventful time’. They were positioned at the extreme right of the battalion by a sunken road. A cellar was their only refuge. There was no trench yet, and it was their task to fortify their flank to prevent enemy infiltration into the village. Coming under heavy artillery and sniper fire, the platoon suffered many fatalities, reducing it to nine men, four of whom were wounded. These were the sole survivors of the sixty-two members who had left England in March 1915.

Throughout this period Angliss considered Paterson to have been ‘outstandingly brave’, a man who ‘never actually flinched to a closely bursting shell or grenade’, and that he well deserved a Victoria Cross. When volunteers were needed to raid German trenches, ‘Paterson would say to his men; “The colonel wants a party to go out tonight. I’m one. Who else is coming?”. The response was pretty well unanimous.’ Only once did he ever admit to ‘some fear’: when, before he could evacuate his men from an exposed sap, he had to wire it in, which he did, thirty-five yards from the German line.