many miles of conquered ground,
read even more strangely. It was open at the eighty-ninth Psalm, and
the only legible words were, "Thou hast broken down all his hedges;
thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin."

[Illustration: The Ancre opposite Hamel]

From the hill-top where these graves are the lines droop down towards
the second of the four roads, which runs here in the Ancre valley
parallel with the river and the railway. The slope is steep and the
ground broken with shallow gullies and lynchets. Well down towards the
river, just above the road, a flattish piece of land leads to a ravine
with steep and high banks. This flattish land, well within the enemy
line, was the scene of very desperate fighting on the 1st of July.

Looking at the enemy line in front of our own line here, one sees
little but a gentle crest, protected by wire, in front of another
gentle crest, also wired, with other gentle crests beyond and to the
left. To the right there is a blur of gentle crests behind tree-tops.
It is plain from a glance that gullies run irregularly into the spurs
here, and make the defence easy. All through the fighting here, it
happened too often that the taking of one crest only meant that the
winners were taken in flank by machine guns in the crest beyond, and
(in this bit of the line) by other guns on the other side of the
river.

Well to the back of the English line here, on the top of the plateau,
level with Auchonvillers, some trees stand upon the skyline, with the
tower of a church, battered, but not destroyed, like the banner of
some dauntless one, a little to the west of the wood. The wood shows
marks of shelling, but nothing like the marks on the woods attacked by
our own men. There are signs of houses among the trees, and the line
of a big wood to the east of them.

This church and the buildings near it are parts of Mesnil village,
most of which lies out of sight on the further side of the crest. They
are conspicuous landmarks, and can be made out from many parts of the
field. The chalk scarp on which they stand is by much the most
beautiful thing on the battlefield, and the sight of Mesnil church
tower on the top of it is most pleasant. That little banner stood all
through the war, and not all the guns of the enemy could bring it
down. Many men in the field near Mesnil, enduring the mud of the thaw,
and the lice, wet, and squalor of dugouts near the front, were cheered
by that church tower. "For a