nks of this sunken part are perpendicular. Until recently, they were
grown over with a scrub of dwarf beech, ash, and sturdy saplings, now
mostly razed by fire. In the road itself our men built up walls of
sandbags to limit the effects of enemy shell fire. From these defences
steps cut in the chalk of the bank lead to the field above, where
there were machine-gun pits.

The field in front of the lane (where these pits were) is a fairly
smooth slope for about fifty yards. Then there is the lynchet or
remblai, like a steep cliff, from three to twelve feet high, hardly to
be noticed from above until the traveller is upon it. Below this
lynchet is a fairly smooth slope, so tilted that it slopes down to the
right towards the valley road, and slopes up to the front towards the
enemy line. Looking straight to the front from the Sunken Road our men
saw no sudden dip down at the lynchet, but a continuous grassy field,
at first flat, then slowly rising towards the enemy parapet. The line
of the lynchet-top merges into the slope behind it, so that it is not
seen. The enemy line thrusts out in a little salient here, so as to
make the most of a little bulge of ground which was once wooded and
still has stumps. The bulge is now a heap and ruin of burnt and
tumbled mud and chalk. To reach it our men had to run across the flat
from the Sunken Road, slide down the bank of the lynchet, and then run
up the glacis to the parapet.

The Sunken Road was only held by our men as an advanced post and
"jumping off" (or attacking) point. Our line lay behind it on a higher
part of the spur, which does not decline gradually into the valley
road, but breaks off in a steep bank cut by our soldiers into a flight
of chalk steps. These steps gave to all this part of the line the
name of Jacob's Ladder. From the top of Jacob's Ladder there is a good
view of the valley road running down into Beaumont Hamel. To the right
there is a big steep knoll of green hill bulking up to the south of
the valley, and very well fenced with enemy wire. All the land to the
right or south of Jacob's Ladder is this big green hill, which is very
steep, irregular, and broken with banks, and so ill-adapted for
trenching that we were forced to make our line further from the enemy
than is usual on the front. The front trenches here are nearly five
hundred yards apart. As far as the hill-top the enemy line has a great
advantage of position. To reach it our men had to cross the ope