e men made their way back in small parties to
Vlamertinghe, where the night was spent. The next day the Battalion moved
by train to a camp by Watou. Two or three days were spent here, and then
the Battalion detrained to go down south to join General Byng's Third
Army.

LEMPIRE.

The train journey lasted all day and the Battalion detrained at Bapaume,
and by a night march on a bright moonlight night marched to a Nissen hut
camp between Barastre and Haplincourt, where it sojourned for a few days.
During this time a few of the non-commissioned officers were able to visit
the Somme battlefield, and locate a few of the graves of the men who had
fallen a little over twelve months ago. A day's march on the 1st October
brought the Battalion to Aizecourt-le-Bas, and after a night's rest it
proceeded to St. Emilie, where the men were billeted amid the ruins of
what had formerly been a sugar factory. During the march it was made
plainly evident to all with what thoroughness the work of destruction had
been carried out by the Germans. The villages were not merely in ruins.
Every house and every room had been rendered useless as a billet or
shelter of any kind. The cellars had been filled with stones or refuse,
so that even these were of no use. The trees had all been wantonly
destroyed. Even small fruit trees of only a few years' growth did not
escape the axe. The wells had all been blown in, and in many cases they
were poisoned as well. The churches were treated exactly the same as the
houses. The whole region was desolate. There were no civilian inhabitants,
and soldiers were the only occupants of this wilderness.

After a few days in the Sugar Factory the Battalion moved to the forward
positions at Lempire. This sector was very different from any sector the
Battalion had occupied. There was no trench system comprising front and
support trenches. The front was held by means of isolated posts occupied
by a platoon or a company as the case might be, and these posts were
linked up by means of communication trenches, so that they could be
visited. There being little artillery on either side, the whole sector was
very quiet, and as the lines were far apart there was little sniping.

The Battalion did one tour in Cat, Fleeceall and Grafton Posts in front of
Lempire, and then moved up to the Ossus sector. Though the Germans had
destroyed all buildings behind the British line, the buildings behind the
German lines were intact, and t