The pit props required for the chambers mostly came from the Bois l’Abbé, and in the same wood a small party of sappers from the company, with a few infantry, ran a very useful industry, manufacturing large numbers of hurdles and brush wood mats, the latter being chiefly used for hiding the chalk spoil heaps from aerial observation.
The support line through Villers Brettoneux was a difficult job and No. 3 section expended a considerable amount of labour pushing down walls with Wallaby jacks, in order to clear a field of fire. The same section also constructed a novel tank block on the railway near the station, as the enemy had already used tanks in this area, and it was feared he might send one down the big railway cutting.
The inner defences of the town itself consisted of a series of so-called “keeps,” or defended posts, among the buildings, wired round, loop-holed, and with strengthened cellars in which the garrisons lived. Part of the time the garrisons consisted of detachments of Pioneers, who carried out their own works, but when infantry was in occupation, sappers from the company shored up cellars, loop-holed walls, fitted gas-proof doorways, and strung barbed wire among the shattered buildings of the ruined town.
While on this sector the company had an officer (Lieut. Raynsford) and four sergeants of the 6th U.S. Engineers attached for instruction.
Noteworthy dugout jobs of the company were the double Battalion Headquarters at the Monastery, in the Bois l’Abbé; extensions to the headquarters in the quarry on the western outskirts of Villers Bretonneux; a Company Headquarters near the gas works, and extension to Brigade Headquarters on the railway line. Two very large dugouts, begun by the 4th Division, were completed in the notorious Gas valley, between the Bois l’Abbé and the town; a dugout was completed near the main road in the wood for a Trench Mortar Battery, and a couple of jobs were started east of the town.
Tunnels under the main highway which runs from Villers Brettoneux to Warfusee Abancourt, where the various trench lines intersected it, were commenced with some interest, as the road was said to be of Roman origin, and it was thought that remains might perhaps be disclosed illustrative of the methods of the great road builders. Nothing of interest was discovered, the road consisting of quite a thin shell of ordinary macadam resting on loam.
This was the only period when the 3rd Division held the line alongside the French. The relations between the two were at all times very cordial. The Australian exchanged cigarettes for a share of the Frenchman’s “pinard” (issue wine), while the poilu was not slow to appreciate the “buckshee” (free) cocoa of the Y.M.C.A., or “imka” as he pronounced it. The railway cutting inhabited by the 11th Field Company was an international post in itself, as in addition to the company it was used by the headquarters of a French battery, and the cookhouse of the British 8in. hows. detachment already mentioned. What helped to endear the French soldier to the Australian was a fellow feeling arising from his noticeable readiness to appropriate to his own uses, in cheerful contravention of rules and regulations, such trifles as railway sleepers and rails, also anything which he could find to his liking in Villers Brettoneux. International posts in the line were a favourite subject for official photographers; international foraging parties in the ruined town might have provided much more interesting unofficial pictures, if only private cameras had been allowed.
The Company Transport, working from Lamotte, had a busy time on this sector. All supplies, including water, had, of course, to be taken to the railway cutting, but in addition, the transport of engineer material from the motor lorry dump to the various dugouts kept teams going constantly in the pontoon and G.S. wagons.
Although the Corps supply of timber was good, it was never sufficient for requirements, and three or four sappers were kept
working pit saws on a big pile of logs on the canal bank near the horse lines.