the taking of
one prisoner had just converted it into a success, but we had sustained
a large number of casualties, most of them, fortunately, only slight. Of
the officers, Goodier was scratched, and Milne had a bullet through his
arm, whilst among those who were not actually with the raiders Lt. C. S.
Wood, the signalling officer, was somewhat badly wounded, his work being
taken over later by 2nd-Lt. Smith, and Lt. S. J. Wilson was slightly
wounded. 2nd-Lt. Goodier was awarded the M.C., Sgt. Fleetwood and Sgt.
Green the D.C.M., while five others received the M.M. for this night's
work. This was the concluding page of our first chapter in the front
line, for we then moved out to Sailly in reserve.

When the brigade went into the line again it was to take over the sector
to the right of Hebuterne on the ridge previously mentioned. The most
important feature about this part of the line was La Signy Farm, which
lay just below the crest on the eastern side of the ridge. The ruins of
the farm building were in Boche hands, but the eastern side of the five
hundred yards square hedge that surrounded the grounds ran along our
front line. North of the grounds our line was echeloned forward and then
ran due north to the corner of Hebuterne. Skeletons of large trees stood
up like tall sentinels over the piles of bricks and stones which had
once made up the farm buildings. At the farthest corner of the hedge was
a shell-pitted patch of ground in a slight depression marked on the map
as Basin Wood. This was known to be honeycombed with deep dug-outs and
galleries and was therefore a frequent target for our heavy howitzers.
Further south the two opposing lines were almost parallel as far as the
vicinity of Watling Street--then a Boche trench. In the dead ground
behind our line was Euston Dump, which had gone up with a tremendous
roar in the early days of the March fighting, leaving a large hole.
Stoke's mortar shells, "footballs," etc., were scattered about in all
directions. Not far away from here was the Sugar Factory, which, from
the attention it received, the Hun regarded as more important than we
did.

The C.O. maintained his policy of worrying the Hun in every possible
manner, the fullest use being made of the artillery liaison officers and
the Stokes and Newton trench mortars for this purpose. Every night
little strafes were planned which must have kept Fritz in a constant
state of speculation as to what might happen next. To