Early in the New Year came the news for which Moeran and his fellow officers had been waiting, and on 8 January, two trainloads comprising thirty-three officers and nearly one thousand men of the battalion travelled to Southampton, where they embarked on the SS Archangel for Le Havre. On arriving in France shortly before midnight, they marched to a rest camp. Since Moeran did not keep a personal diary, or if he did, it has not survived, and since any letters that he may have written home have been lost, it is not possible to know how he spent what free time he may have had. Although front-line soldiering was a full-time occupation, there were periods away from the trenches, and there are countless stories of soldiers occupying themselves with creative activities, such as writing poetry, stories and diaries, playing and composing music, the creation of which has become known as trench art. Thus, while none of Moeran's surviving works can be dated to the period January to May 1917, there is no reason to suppose that he gave up composition entirely. Until the publication of the war diaries, the belief had been that soldiers spent weeks or even months in rain-sodden, freezing cold muddy trenches, contending with disease, rats and the continual bombardment from German artillery. The diaries have revealed that, in practice, a rotation system ensured that most units spent no more than eight days at a time in the trenches at the front line. They were then replaced by another unit and were moved back to reserve trenches for a few days and then moved further back to a rest camp for a further few days, before taking their turn again in the front-line trenches. While this knowledge in no way diminishes the appalling conditions often experienced by many solders, it reveals that some consideration was given to enable the men to rest and recuperate regularly in safety.

At the beginning of February, Moeran's company was sent to Beaussart as a working party to assist the 252nd Tunnelling Company creating dugouts. On their return, Moeran, together with three of his colleagues, was assigned to the 5th Army Group Divisional School of Instruction for trench mortar and other specialised weapons training.