e; his batteries lay beyond crests, his men were in hiding
places. Just below us on the lower slopes of this Hawthorn Ridge he
had one vast hiding place which gave us a great deal of trouble. This
was a gully or ravine, about five hundred yards long, well within his
position, running (roughly speaking) at right angles with his front
line. Probably it was a steep and deep natural fold made steeper and
deeper by years of cultivation. It is from thirty to forty feet deep,
and about as much across at the top; it has abrupt sides, and thrusts
out two forks to its southern side. These forks give it the look of a
letter +Y+ upon the maps, for which reason both the French and
ourselves called the place the "Ravin en Y" or "Y Ravine." Part of the
southernmost fork was slightly open to observation from our lines; the
main bulk of the gully was invisible to us, except from the air.

Whenever the enemy has had a bank of any kind, at all screened from
fire, he has dug into it for shelter. In the Y Ravine, which provided
these great expanses of banks, he dug himself shelters of unusual
strength and size. He sank shafts into the banks, tunnelled long
living rooms, both above and below the gully-bottom, linked the rooms
together with galleries, and cut hatchways and bolting holes to lead
to the surface as well as to the gully. All this work was securely
done, with balks of seasoned wood, iron girders, and concreting. Much
of it was destroyed by shell fire during the battle, but much not hit
by shells is in good condition to-day even after the autumn rains and
the spring thaw. The galleries which lead upwards and outwards from
this underground barracks to the observation posts and machine-gun
emplacements in the open air, are cunningly planned and solidly made.
The posts and emplacements to which they led are now, however, (nearly
all) utterly destroyed by our shell fire.

In this gully barracks, and in similar shelters cut in the chalk of
the steeper banks near Beaumont Hamel, the enemy could hold ready
large numbers of men to repel an attack or to make a counter-attack.
They lived in these dugouts in comparative safety and in moderate
comfort. When our attacks came during the early months of the battle,
they were able to pass rapidly and safely by these underground
galleries from one part of the position to another, bringing their
machine guns with them. However, the Ravine was presently taken and
the galleries and underground shelte