THE OLD WAR ZONE.

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 32, 6 August 1930, Page 7

THE OLD WAR ZONE.

TWELVE YEAES AETEE

THE SOMME OF 1918

(By J. G. Holmes, late N.Z.M.C. and R. 8.)

IVO. VIII. In the early spring of 1918 New Zealanders -were in the SOHime country; again. They had been' rushed down, from the Ypres Salient with the Australians to fill the gap made by the breaking of tlio Fifth Army front an.4 to save Amiens and Doullens. They; stemmed the Gorman advance between Mo'snil. Martinsart and Hebuterne, and, there they dug in to hold the Hue during the anxious months of April, May, and June. It was a very different Sorunio they; saw from the country over which they, had fought in the late autumn of 1916. They wore on the fringe of that old battlefield, but this time to the north of Albert and to the west of the Albeit Bapaume road. From the new front Hue they looked out upon much country; that had been hardly won by the British, Australians, and Canadians two ■ years before and had now to be won. again. In some sectors old German, trenches and dugouts now served them. On the Sbmnio in 1916 all the villages over a wide area had been dead ruins. On the Somnie in 1918 many of; the ■ villages close to the front line were inhabited, and trenches had to be hastily dug across fields that had lately carried crops and through orchards and gardens There-was Mailly Maillet, for example, It yet had some trim little gardens, havens for.rest and home thoughts within their high brick walls. The old village cure remained, anxiously watching: his church, which was just beginning to receive the attention 'of the enemy's artillery. It was at Mailly Maillet that some members of the Maori Pioneer Battalion found an abandoned cellar stocked with wine, mounted their own guard over it,1 relieved the sentry in regulation fashion, and so kept away all prying eyes, both commissioned and non-commissioned, and preserved, the precious store for. themselves: „ Thefe was Sailly-au-Bois where a large farhihouse came to serve as battalion headquarters, and a -brewery of sorts .jv^a's converted into divisional baths., -.'..■"."■ STARTIiINGLY FAMILIAR. >' Despite the proximity of the .newformed battle front,' the growing intensity of the German bombardments,: and the utter demolition of other "villages such as CoHncamps, Auehonvillei'S,:aiid Hebuterne, this country retained aibte of a. semblance qf rural peace, than .ai^y; of the other areas in which/th^' New Zealanders had fought. Oii'a isuiiit^JiiJj.y, in summer, resting out of jine. Jlipe, one could lie. in'a meadow and.forget the war for*a little time. Visited again, twelve years after, all this countryside is startlingly familiar. Each village on the sky-Hue had its own peculiar shape formed by the run of the streets and a frame of encircling trees. To-day those same outlines can be readily recognised. Mailly Maillet saved its old church, though not much else. The south-west-ern portion has been j-ebuilt in new stone. The old western facade *' Still stands, though its richly-carved stonework is much chipped by shell fragments. Most of the houses of Mailly Maillet are new, but there remain the shell-shattered ruins of several, old buildings. On the walls of one of them is still nailed a wooden notice board, a relic of the war, sttaing what accommodation was once there for '' Officers, Men, Horses," and the number.of cellars. :■■;.:.' Sailly-au-Bois, though rebuilt,.I.is yery; much as if* was.., There! is 'tKe.-.little stone church at the top of the hill,' now enclosed by a military cemetery, and the larger church at the bottom of the hill. One takes one's lunch into a cafe to eat with a glass of beer.: There is Madame busy at the midday meal, with children at her skirts. The old coffee pot is on the stovei But instead,,of soldiers from the trenches, labourers from, the fields come to sit at the table. It is when one moves on to some-of the villages nearer the crld front lino that changes confuse the memory. Gne can scarcely remember Colineamps as a village at all. Now among its clustered farms only the shape of some of tho. little orchards is recollected. Auchonvillers was another rubble heap through which one made one's way mostly;by trench. To-day one cycles-down*.a main , street, past a church, houses and Wellbuilt batns, but on to a road "betvre'eu the fields, and in -a; few minute's*;' Beaumont Hamel is close at hand, •'".pile's way niust be retraced to mark again the place where the old front Hne crossed the road'and joined Fifth Ayenua on the high ground overlooking Serre* CHANGED HEBUTERNE. - Hebuterne was easily' recognised -in the distance from SaiUy-au-Bois. Within, its encircling trees" and* hedges . all is strange. -. In. May and June, 1916, one spent no more time than one had to ~ above ground in Hebuterne. There were not only shells to be .feared but machine-gun bullets, for there were parts of the ruined village Hable to be enfiladed from the enemy's lines. Cap-1 aeious dugouts in sunken roads on the outskirts of the village were healthier. The writer had ■ and still has itt.rMs mind's eye a clear picture of one of those high-banked lanes. It was 'well to keep close to one of the banks when, walking down it. But where is it now? Either tho new village has grown q-tfer it, and it has been transformed into a street, or disuse has allowed it-to be gathered into the fields. One spot has a familiar look. There is a deep'depression at a junction of two roads. Here a dump had once exploded-and left a larger pit than, was normally, made by shells. In Hebuterne trim gardens are growing again outside now cottages. The old wilderness had been distinguished for its profusion of garden flowers that still struggled with the weeds. Scaffolding foreshadows a stout, high tower for the new church. In search _of old landmarks, one takes a road leading out of the village. It soon leads into the old No Man's Land. Pasteur Trench has disappeared; so also have the Six Poplars. Serre is a restored-hamlet. The Serre road is being relaid, with bitumen, and a notice of danger does not give warning of enemy observation, but of a cylindre-au-vapeur —a steamrollor. Many of these roads, on which one -meets again the old hooded farm, carts, have been bituminised. ;■..