to
the old spot and thus settled all rumours for the present. Our work was
not yet done. The 7th went to the support trenches they had recently
vacated, but the 41st divisional R.E's. had been busy upon them during
our absence, and a few habitable bivvies had been made. The 5th and 6th
were further back behind Essarts. The Hun had converted Essarts into a
perfect hell, and at irregular intervals he subjected it to tremendous
bombardments with his largest guns, particularly during the night. Our
transport knew something about this, for their road passed through the
village when bringing up rations at night. In this connection Lieut.
Wilkinson distinguished himself by the courageous manner in which he
got his column through during the most anxious moments. His job at this
time was not an enviable one, but we could always rely upon his arrival
each evening, very seldom late, with his store of rations, water, rum
and bundle of letters. After three days in reserve the brigade took over
the front line, in practically the same position as before, but there
had been a readjustment of divisional boundaries, so that we were now on
the left, while the 125th brigade were on the right, and their line ran
in front of Bucquoy. The 7th were in support at first, so we only moved
about 400 yards to trenches vacated by the 8th Manchesters.

At dawn on April 5th the Hun commenced to send over thousands of gas
shells in the direction of Essarts. It was a dull, misty
morning--perfect conditions for this form of devilry--and we could hear
the brutes whistling and whining over our heads for more than three
hours. The intention was, of course, to silence our guns, and the object
of this was to make an attack upon Bucquoy all the easier. He came over
at the L.F's. and there was heavy fighting all the morning, but he did
not progress much. The 8th L.F's. suffered severely, losing all their
officers, including Lt.-Col. Davies (previously of the 6th Manchesters),
who was killed. The enemy's intention had been to take the village and
push on with a view to straightening the line, but he only captured the
eastern portion of the village, and that only after very heavy losses.
Similar progress had previously been made against the division on the
right, and this made the L.F. situation impossible. We afterwards learnt
that a large number of gas casualties had gone down from the Essarts
district. In their solicitude during the bitterest days the division