e exhaustion and exposure of the troops, the 151st
Brigade were substituted when the attack recommenced on April 13. We
started our march in the snow just as the light was beginning to fail,
and trudged along through the muddy slush till we reached Arras. Here
there was a delay of several hours before guides arrived to lead the
various units to their stations. B.H.Q. marched through the town and
eventually arrived at the ruined sugar factory at Faubourg Ronville,
where there were deep dugouts below the ruins. We could not see much
of the city but it appeared to be badly knocked about by the enemy's
shells. Not many houses, perhaps, had fallen to bits, but there was
hardly a house that had not been hit. A great many small shells must
have been fired into the town. The place of course was full of
underground passages--though I never had the chance of entering them.
When morning came I was able to take stock of my surroundings. The
sugar factory was one of the last buildings at the S.E. end of the
city, and a trench tramway led to what had once been the front line
trenches about a quarter of a mile from these H.Q.

My job that morning was to hunt round for the dumps of grenades &c.
which had been made by our predecessors before their advance. I
remember finding two of these in fairly good condition in the
neighbourhood of Telegraph Hill--only of course on the Arras side. The
cold night on which we arrived had taken heavy toll of the cavalry
horses, and many of these splendid animals could be seen scattered
about on the ground, some already dead and others dying. They were too
fine bred to stand that wintry night in an open bivouac. As far as I
could make out our lighter siege guns had moved up towards the
Telegraph Hill ridge and our field guns towards Neuville Vitasse;
there were still howitzers of heavy calibre in the environs of the
city itself. I believe the 151st Infantry Brigade attacked on April
13, and pushed across the Cojeul Valley north of Heninel, and dug in
just west of the Wancourt Tower ridge. Wancourt was captured but not
Guemappe, and Marliere was in our hands. On that day I was instructed
to make a dump at Telegraph Hill, which I had no difficulty in doing
as the place was quite quiet.

[Illustration: Scene of Attacks on Cherisy. April 1917.]

The next day this dump was removed to the region of the Elm Trees at
Wancourt behind the 'Brown Line'; and the Brigade relieved the 151st
Infantry Brigade. B.