CHAPTER XXVI

THE NEW ENTRY

_France, November 13th._


Last week an Australian force made its attack in quite a different area
of the Somme battle.

The sky was blue in patches, with cold white clouds between. The wind
drove icily. There had been practically no rain for two days.

We were in a new corner. The New Zealanders had pushed right through to
the comparatively green country just here--and so had the British to
north and south of it. We were well over the slope of the main ridge, up
which the Somme battle raged for the first three months. Pozières, the
highest point, where Australians first peeped over it, lay miles away to
our left rear. From the top of the ridge behind you, looking back over
your left shoulder, you could just see a few distant broken tree stumps.
I think they marked the site of that old nightmare.

We were looking down a long even slope to a long up-slope beyond. The
country around us was mostly brown-mud shell-holes. Not like the
shell-holes of that blasted hill-top of two months back--I have never
seen anything quite like that, though they say that Guillemont, which I
have not seen, is as devastated. In this present area there is green
grass between the rims of the craters. But not enough green grass to