I went to dinner with the 7th N.F. at their H.Q., and
was very hospitably entertained. The Brigade moved from Bresle to a
camp at Becourt on November 28, and stayed there two days; and then
took over from a Brigade of the 1st Division at Bazentin-le-Petit.

XIX

BUTTE OF WARLENCOURT--TRENCH WARFARE

On December 30, 1916, the Brigade was in the reserve area about
Bazentin-le-Petit, and ready to take over the line of trenches running
eastwards from a point south of the Butte of Warlencourt. No material
change had taken place on this part of the front since the fruitless
attack of November 11. The 1st Division, however, had done a good deal
of work in the back areas, and had laid duck-board tracks from High
Wood to the front line, and increased the number of light railways.
B.H.Q. were at some dugouts at the 'Cough Drop,' a place about a mile
north of High Wood. The 149th Infantry Brigade had now decided to make
use of a party of 'Observers,' and Major Anderson asked me to take
charge of them. I was a little diffident about this as I had never had
any experience as a Battalion Intelligence Officer and really knew
nothing at all about observation. But I was glad to take on the job,
and I soon got to like it. On December 30, therefore, two trained
observers from each of the four battalions of the Brigade reported to
me. And I had two N.C.Os. with this party--a corporal of the 4th N.F.,
who soon left to take a commission, and L.-C. Amos of the 7th N.F.,
who afterwards became N.C.O. in charge. On the same day I met the
Intelligence Officer of the 1st Brigade who took me over the line and
showed me the two O.P.s. I was lucky to meet at the start an officer
who understood the business so well. He gave me many useful hints, and
handed over an excellent panoramic sketch map of the view from one
O.P., as well as the Log Book. The latter was a notebook containing
reports of every movement of the enemy seen from the O.P.s. On
December 31 I took the party of observers up to the Cough Drop where
they had a shelter near B.H.Q. I had also supervision of the two
Brigade dumps, one at Hexham Road and the other at the Flers Line
about half a mile north of B.H.Q. Both places came in for heavy
shelling at intervals all day and night, for both were situated about
the end of a trench tramway, an obvious place for dumping stores.
However I had the latter dump moved to a better place, some distance
from the tramway, where there was les