THE DUG-OUTS OF FRICOURT

_France, July 3rd._


Yesterday from the opposite slope of a gentle valley we watched Fricourt
village taken. This morning we walked down through the long grass across
what two days ago was No Man's Land into the old German defences. The
grass has been uncut for two years on these slopes, and that is why
there springs from them such a growth of flowers as I have rarely seen.
I think it was once a wheat field that we were walking through. It is a
garden of poppies, cornflowers, and mustard flower now.

Half-way down the slope we noticed that we were crossing a line which
seemed to have been strangely ruled through the wheat field. It was
covered with grass, but there was a line of baby apple trees on each
side of it. It took one some seconds to realise that it was a road.

We jumped across trench after trench of our own. At the bottom of the
valley we stepped over a trench which had a wire entanglement in front
of it. It was the old British front line. The space in front of it had
been No Man's Land.

Some of our men were still lying where shrapnel or rifle fire had caught
them. By them ran another old road up the valley. Beyond the road the
railway trucks were still standing as they have stood for two years in
what once was Fricourt siding. The foundations of Fricourt village stood
up a little beyond, against the dark shades of Fricourt Wood.
Immediately before us, in front of this battered white ash heap, were