of a gently rising hill, over which the Roman road ran as is the way
with Roman roads, was a pretty village, with its church, its cemetery
under the shady trees; its orchards and picturesque village houses. When
the lines crystallised in front of Albert it was some miles behind the
German trenches. Our guns put a few shells into it; but six weeks ago it
was still a country village, somewhat wrecked but probably used for the
headquarters of a German regiment. Then came the British bombardment for
a week before the battle of the Somme.

The bombardment shattered Pozières. Its buildings were scattered as you
would scatter a house of toy bricks. Its trees began to look ragged. By
the time Boiselle and Ovilliers were taken, and the front had pushed up
to within a quarter or half a mile of Pozières, a tattered wood was all
that marked the spot. Behind the brushwood you could still see in three
or four places the remains of a pink wall. Some way to the north-east of
the village, near the actual summit of the hill, was a low heap of
bleached terra-cotta. It was the stump of the Pozières windmill.

Since then Pozières has had our second bombardment, and a German
bombardment which lasted four days, in addition to the normal German
barrage across the village which has never really ceased. You can
actually see more of the buildings than before. That is to say, you can
see any brick or stone that stands. For the brushwood and tattered
branches which used to hide the road have gone; and all that remain are
charred tree stumps standing like a line of broken posts. The upland
around was once cultivated land, and it should be green with the weeds
of two years. It is as brown as the veldt. Over the whole face of the
country shells have ploughed up the land literally as with a gigantic
plough, so that there is more red and brown earth than green. From the
distance all the colour is given by these upturned crater edges, and the