"THOSE HELLS."

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15700, 20 September 1916, Page 2

"THOSE HELLS."

BLOOD AND SWEAT.

THE HUNS MOVING.

LONDON, July 27. The following is from _the letter of an English officer serving in Franco to a brother officer -who has been invalided homo:—■

"Wo had an exceptionally hot time between Pozieres and Bazentin le Petit; the sort of time you would have enjoyed, because it included a lot of close work; tho sort of strafing in which ono could see tho faces of tho men one was fighting with; what you used to call very interesting, and some of us used to think too 'interesting' to be comfortable. Just now wo are back for a dose of 'alleged rest,' to use your own phrase. But, as a fact, wo really have had a night's rest; most luxurious. But the thing that would interest you is the place we've had it in. You remember—you're not likely to forget 'the sunken road,' where the old farmcart lay upside down in No Man's Land. Remember the dip, where you put y<jur hand in the caved-in chest cf that dead Boche, when wo were crawling, on our first patrol. What a sight 1 Those damned machine-guns playing from Ovillers on our left, and La Boiselle on our right. Very well. Shut your eyes, and look along to the south, past the old roller to the mound where we scuppered that Bocho patrol. Remember those sort of chalky cliffs in their front line there; quarter left from the advanced trench we dug; where they had it so honeycombed with machine-gun emplacements. I "Right there, my son, is where we had our night's rest. " I was in a German company-commander's dug-out, with and . For breakfast next morning wo went up.to a hu-e old dug-out in the Boches' old supportline. You remember that dark brown, gravelly pit, where -you spotted their trench excavator machine at work, and got our heavies on to it that afternoon ; up the hill from the queer curtained place that our artillery smashed up tho day poor was billed. Just* south of that, in a communication trench, is a dug-out you could accommodate half a battalion in. That's where we had brekker. After breaklast I made a regular tour round with of the 's.

"I suppose it would seem nothing to other peonle, but you, whq were here with us through all those dismal winter months—will one ever forget those patrols, and the wiring parties; that awful left sector, where we joined up with ? You will understand how thrilling it was to bo able to wulk about on that ground in broad daylight, smoking one's pipe. Remember how our chaps used to risk their lives in tho early days for such silly souvenirs as nose-caps, and that kind of thing. You could gather 'em by the cartload hereabouts, and Bocho caps and buttons, and bits of unifc»m >and boots, and broken rifles and odd tags of Squip. ment—cartloads of it. SACRED GROUND. "To btlier folk, and on the maps, one place seems just like another, i suppose ; but to us—La Boiselle and Ovillers My hat! To walk about in those hells 1 Not one of those broken walls we knew so well (through our glasses) is standing now, and only a few jagged spikes where the trees were. I went along the 'sunken road' all the way to Contalmaison. Talk about sacred ground. When I think what No Man's- Land was to us for nearly a yearl The new troops coming up now go barging across it in the most light-hearted " way.' They know nothing about it. It means no inoro to .them than the roads behind used to inean to us.' It's all behind, to them, and never was the front. "But when I think how we watered every yard of it with blood and sweat —those devilish Narrows, you know. Children might play' there now, if it didn't look so much like the aftermath of an earthquake. But you know, there's a kind of a wrench about seeing the new chaps swagger over it so carelessly, and seeing it gradually merged into tho behind-the-line country, I have a sort of feeling it ought to bo marked . off somehow, a permanent memorial. You remember that old couplo who had the blacksmith's shop at . The wife was down at the corner by tho other night, when I came along with half a platoon. I found her wringing the hands of some of our stolid chaps in 13. and couldn't make it out. Then she told me, halfsobbing, how she and her husband owned a couplo of fields just beyond our old front line, and how she wanted to'thank us for getting them back.

u , Think of what those holds must have been in the spring of | 1914, and what they are to-dav, everv yard of 'em torn by shells, biirrowecl through and through by old trcnches and dug-outs. Think of the hundreds of tons of wire, sandbags, timber gal(vanised iron, duck-boards, riveting /stuff,_ steel, iron, blood, and sweat • the rum-jars, bully beef tins, old trench boots, field dressings, cartridge cases, rockets, wire stanchions and stakes, gas gongs, bomb boxes, S.A.A. cases, broken canteens, bits of uniforms, and buried soldiers and Boches—all'in the old lady's two little fields. Think how she must have felt, after twcFyoars, to know we'd got 'em back. She's walked over them by now, I daresay. But I must get 3 move on. We're for the thick of it again to-morrow morning. Advance on that Bapaume road, my boy. Our cavalrv .will know something about it before long. It's some advance, all right. You mustn't grouse too much about not being with us, but I wish to God vou could be. For I can tell yon, I think we've got 'em really moving this time. They'll never get back the ground we've won, the advantage of it over our old line is bevond words. When -we're through this third system—well we shall see things. But don't be 'in a hurry. Tell everybody they mustn't be impatient. It can't be a quick .job, but if I know anything about it, it s goin S to be a verv sure or.e. . 'My notion is tho Boche will fifrht it out to the last gasp. His army is a very fine machine, and their discipline is so good they simply must fight to the bitter end. But, all the same. I believe he knows now that he's i beaten. But lie didn't know it a few weeks ago. The prisoners arc thundering glad to be prisoners, I can assure you."