country by the trees around them. It is not that they originally stood
in a woodland; but when the village is a mere heap of foundations
powdered white the only relic of it left standing erect, if you except a
battered wall or two, is the shredded trunks and stumps of trees which
once made the gardens or orchards or hedges behind the houses. Our
troops had three obstacles before them--first a shallow, hastily dug
trench in the open in front of the trees around the village; then
certain trenches running generally through the trees and hedges and
behind a trench railway; thirdly, such lines as existed in the village
itself. The village is strung out along a stretch of the Albert-Bapaume
road up which the battle has advanced from the first. Just beyond the
village, near what remains of the Pozières Mill on the very top of the
hill, is the German second line still (at time of writing) in possession
of the Germans. Another line crossing the road in front of the village
was then in their hands.

On Saturday afternoon our heavy shells were tearing at regular intervals
into the rear of the brickheaps which once were houses, and flinging up
branches of trees and great clouds of black earth from the woods. A
German letter was found next day dated "In Hell's Trenches." It added:
"It is not really a trench, but a little ditch, shattered with
shells--not the slightest cover and no protection. We have lost 50 men
in two days, and life is unendurable." White puffs of shrapnel from
field guns were lathering the place persistently, so that when the
German trenches were broken down it was difficult to repair them or move
in them.

Our men in their trenches were cleaning rifles, packing away spare kit,
yarning there much as they yarned of old over the stockyard fence or the
gate of the horse paddock.