ribbon of ugliness widened again between Souchez and
the yet uncaptured Vimy Ridge, but afterwards contracted as far as
Arras, that ragged sentinel of the war frontier.

At Arras we entered our own particular province, which, after months of
flying over it, I knew better than my native county. Gun-flashes became
numerous, kite balloons hung motionless, and we met restless aeroplane
formations engaged on defensive patrols. With these latter on guard our
chance of a scrap with roving enemy craft would have been remote; though
for that matter neither we nor they saw a single black-crossed machine
throughout the afternoon.

From Gommecourt to the Somme was an area of concentrated destruction.
The wilderness swelled outwards, becoming twelve miles wide at parts.
Tens of thousands of shells had pocked the dirty soil, scores of mine
explosions had cratered it. Only the pen of a Zola could describe
adequately the zone's intense desolation, as seen from the air. Those
ruins, suggestive of abandoned scrap-heaps, were formerly villages. They
had been made familiar to the world through matter-of-fact reports of
attack and counter-attack, capture and recapture. Each had a tale to
tell of systematic bombardment, of crumbling walls, of wild hand-to-hand
fighting, of sudden evacuation and occupation. Now they were nothing but
useless piles of brick and glorious names--Thiepval, Pozieres, La
Boiselle, Guillemont, Flers, Hardecourt, Guinchy, Combles, Bouchavesnes,
and a dozen others.

Of all the crumbled roads the most striking was the long, straight one
joining Albert and Bapaume. It looked fairly regular for the most part,
except where the trenches cut it. Beyond the scrap-heap that once was
Pozieres two enormous quarries dipped into the earth on either side of
the road. Until the Messines explosion they were the largest mine
craters on the western front. Farther along the road was the scene of
the first tank raids, where on September 16 the metal monsters waddled
across to the gaping enemy and ate up his pet machine-gun emplacements
before he had time to recover from his surprise. At the road's end was
the forlorn stronghold of Bapaume. One by one the lines of defence
before it had been stormed, and it was obvious that the town must fall,
though its capture was delayed until months later by a fierce defence at
the Butte de Warlencourt and elsewhere. The advance towards Bapaume was
of special interest to R.F.C. squadrons on the Somme