ction
of irregular pools dug by big shells during months of battle. The
pools are long enough and deep enough to dive into, and full to
overflowing with filthy water. Sometimes the pressure of the water
bursts the mud banks of one of these pools and a rush of water comes,
and the pools below it overflow, and a noise of water rises in that
solitude which is like the mud and water of the beginning of the world
before any green thing appeared.

[Illustration: The Leipzig Salient under Fire]

Our line runs across this Crucifix Valley in a strong sandbag
barricade. The enemy line crosses it higher up in a continuation of
the front line of the Schwaben. As soon as the lines are across the
valley they turn sharply to the south at an important point.

The Schwaben spur is like a thumb; Crucifix Valley is like the space
between a thumb and a forefinger. Just to the east of Crucifix Valley
a second spur thrusts away down to the south like a forefinger. It is
a long sloping spur, wooded at the lower end. It is known on the maps
as Thiepval Hill or the Leipzig Salient. When the lines turn to the
south after crossing Crucifix Valley they run along the side of this
hill and pass out of sight round the end. The lines are quite regular
and distinct. From the top of the Schwaben it looks as though the side
of the hill were fenced into a neat green track or racecourse. This
track is the No Man's Land, which lies like a broad green regular
stripe between brown expanses along the hillside. All this hill was of
the greatest importance to the enemy. It was as strong an eyrie as the
Schwaben; it turned and made very dangerous our works in front of
Hamel; and it was the key to a covered way to the plateau from which
all these spurs thrust southward.

It is a bolder, more regular spur than the others which thrust from
this plateau. The top slopes so slightly as to be almost level, the
two flanks are rather steep.

Right at the top of it, just where it springs from the plateau, much
where the knuckle of the imagined hand would be, and perhaps five
hundred yards east from our old sandbag barricade in Crucifix Valley,
there is a redness in the battered earth and upon the chalk of the
road. The redness is patchy over a good big stretch of this part of
the spur, but it is all within the enemy lines and well above our own.
Where the shattered hillside slopes towards our lines there are many
remnants of trees, some of them fruit trees arranged