nd fragments of that wire in the bottom of the trenches
themselves; lengths of it were lying among the shattered buildings
behind the lines. The British shells and bombs must have tossed it about
as you would toss hay with a rake. In the tumbled ruins behind the lines
you simply stepped from one crater into another. Into many of those
craters you could have placed a fair-sized room. One big shell, and two
unexploded bombs like huge ancient cannon balls, lay there on a shelf
covered with rubbish.

Through this rubbish heap were scattered odd fragments of farming
machinery--here an old wagon wheel--there a ploughshare or a portion of
a harrow--in another place some old iron press of which I do not know
the use. The rest of the village was like a deserted brick-field, or the
remains of some ancient mining camp--I do not think there were three
fragments of wall over 10 feet high left. And in and out of this debris
wandered the German front line. We jumped down into those trenches where
some shell had broken them in. They were deep and narrow, such as we had
in Gallipoli. Back from them led narrow, deep, winding communication
trenches which, curiously enough, in parts where we saw them, seemed to
have no supports to their walls such as all the trenches in the wet
country farther north must have. Here and there some shell-burst had
broken or shaken them in.

As we made our way along the front line we found, every few yards or so,
a low, squared, timbered opening below the parapet. A dozen wooden steps
led down and forwards into some dark interior far below.

We clambered down into the first of these chambers. It was exactly as
its occupants had left it. On the floor amongst some tumbled blankets
and odd pieces of clothing, socks for the most part, was scattered a
stock of German grenades, each like a grey jampot with a short handle.
The blankets had come from a series of bunks which almost filled up the
whole dark chamber. These bunks were made roughly of wood, in pairs one
over another, packed into every corner of the narrow space with as much
ingenuity as the berths in an emigrant ship. There were, I think, six of
them in that first chamber. Inlet into the wall, at the end of one set
of bunks, was a wooden box doing service for a cupboard. In it were a
penny novel, and three or four bottles of a German table water. At least
one of these was still full. So the garrison of Fricourt was not as hard
put to it for supplies as