top of which was the village of St. Eloi. Directly opposite our
left was Piccadilly Farm, located on a hill about ten meters higher
than our lines. From there toward the right, the enemy line gradually
descended until, at the right of our line, it was only about two
meters higher. The distance between the front lines varied from about
seventy yards, at the right, to about two hundred and fifty yards at
the left. The net result of this situation was that the Germans could
dig trenches of considerable depth, draining the water out under their
parapets or into two small streams which ran from their lines to ours.
They had a playful habit of damming up these streams until an
unusually hard rain would come, when they would open the gates and
give us the benefit of the whole dose. I have seen the water in these
streams rise seven feet within less than an hour and there were times
when in one of our communication trenches it was over a man's head. A
soldier of the West York's regiment was drowned in this trench one
night.

Under such conditions, it was impossible for us to dig. All we could
do was to construct sand-bag parapets or barricades, while our
so-called "dug-outs" consisted of huts constructed of sand-bags,
roofed with corrugated iron and covered with more sand-bags. They
afforded protection from shrapnel and small shell fragments, but, of
course, not against direct hits from any kind of shells. Even a little
"whizz-bang" would go through them as though they were egg-shells. All
the earth thereabouts was of the consistency of thick soup and our
parapet had a habit of sloughing away just about as fast as we could
build it up. As a matter of fact, our communication trenches did
become completely obliterated and we had no recourse but to go in and
out of the trenches "overland." At night this was not so bad, although
we were continually losing men from stray bullets. But when it was
necessary, as it sometimes was, to go in or out in daylight why, it
was a cinch that some one was going to get hit, as the enemy had had
many good snipers watching for just such opportunities. At one time,
for over two weeks more than two hundred yards of our parapet were
down, and if you went from one end of the line to the other you must
expose yourself to the full view of enemy snipers. My duties required
me to cover this stretch of trench at least twice a day.

Our conduct in taking short cuts across the fields when the trenches
were k