While Harry Badcock and other November recruits who where initially in the 2nd/5th Leicesters became part of the first draft of reinforcements to the 1st/5th Leicesters, Wilfred Mason and Arthur Quilter remained with their initial unit. Mason's and Quilter's service papers have not survived, but their original army numbers point to them being recruited at Coalville not many days apart in November 1914. They were both miners and close neighbours in Ellistown, and if not actual friends, they would certainly have known one another.

Regradless of the shortage of modern equipment and uniforms, the training of second line territorials continued. The “long Long Trail” 46th Division page gives their movements:

Nearly nine months on and they were still in the UK, and while they might have been enjoying one of local the Easter Monday fairs near St.Albans, rumours spread that they were finally on the move, but France wasn't to be their destination. Events in Ireland meant battalions of the 59th Division were hurriedly sent to Dublin, arriving on the 26th April. It was units of the Sherwood Foresters that were first to arrive and were soon engaged in bitter street fighting. The 2nd/4th and 2/5th Leicesters arrived a day or two later when the worst of the fighting was over. After a period of mostly guard duty in Dublin, the battalion was moved to county Kerry in May 1916 with the intention of dealing with residual resistance in the countryside. But marching road the countryside in a show of force had little real effect.

The 2/5th Leicesters finally left Ireland on the 6th January 1917 and after a brief period of training sailed to France on 24th February 1917. It is 16 months since Mason and Quilter first volunteered, now it was their turn to experience the Western Front for real.

The 2/5th Leicesters were amongst those to relive battalions that had pursued the Germans back to the Hindenburg line. With the thaw, the misery of mud returned and by mid March they were in trenches near the river Somme. Between 31st March and April 20th the 2/5th Leicesters mounted a number of assaults aimed at wining the high-ground around Le Verguier with its view over the Hindenburg line. Bitter fighting with a tough German rear guard brought a mounting list of casualties. Even when relieved on 20th April, they were still in range of the enemy's guns. The sporadic shelling designed to catch those coming to and from the front line trenches, claimed a steady trickle of victims. A number of men were hit on the 29th April as they rotated with 2nd/6th South Staffordshires. Arthur Quilter could have been one of them, as he died of his wounds on 2nd May 1917.

The 2nd/5th's lack or experience and training may have shown in the fighting around Le Verguier, but by the 1st September they had moved to Winnezeele after a length period of rest, ready for the third battle of Ypres. It was here in the battle of Polygon wood that Wilfred Mason was reported missing presumed killed in action on 26/09/1917. With no known grave, Wilfred is just one of those many ranks of names on the Tyne Cot Memorial.

Another Ibstock man to die around this time is Albert Mattley. He succumbed to wounds on 24/09/1917 and is buried at Wieltje Farm Cemetery, the final resting place of 116 men, a small island of peace in the flat farmland of Flanders.

Albert had been born and brought up in Ibstock, he was one of eight siblings and had lost his father at an early age. His widowed mother relied on the wages of her older sons who were all miners. His brother Ben, just two years older, is thought to have served in the Durham Light Infantry. Albert served in the 2nd/4th Leicesters, there no service papers for him, but judging by his original army number he is likely to have been recruited under the Derby Scheme at the beginning of 1916 and first entered France on 25/02/1917 at the same time as Mason and Quilter. His progress from that point would have been much like that of Mason and Quilter. If there were other recruits to the 2nd/4th Leicesters from the Ibstock area along with Albert, their papers have not survived. But he would have found himself in the company of men still mainly from Leicester.

Albert was most likely wounded by shell fire as his unit, along with the 2/5th Leicesters and 2/6th Sherwood Foresters, moved into the front line on night 23th/24th having previously assembled at the Goldfish Chateau on the 20th September 1917. Around ten other men of the 2nd/4th Leicesters who all joined in third week of January 1916 were to became casualties at this time. They were mostly from Leicester itself.