This raid is recorded as an example of the kind. All the dead and wounded of the party were brought back to our lines.
The enthusiasm was at its highest, the confidence kindled, the regiment avenged.
The sector was calm for a good while.
The 17th of October 1916, the German, roused once again, opened on our line, at kilometer 16, the most powerful bombardment, foreboding a new attack. But our gunners were on the watch, they directed at once a counter-bombardment so violently efficient that it must have taken out from the enemy’s mind the slightest wish to jump out of his haunts.
Ten days later, the 2d line regiment decided to do away with the “One” enemy trench, for good and all. From up the 27th on to the 31st of October detachment raided by night the accursed trench, they undertook the destruction of the shelters, turning the whole of No “One” line into real havoc.
In the course of the years 1917 and 1918, the life at the kilometer 16 quietened down, the intervals between the bombardments and mortar duals lengthened, and were replaced by intermittant artillery and hand grenades fights.
The “Cavalier and Death Trench” received then their final improvements. The first observation cabin having been demolished by gun fire, on April the 4th 1917, a new one in concrete took its place, the upper trench became a platform, the liaison and signal post provided with ground telegraphy. The automatic rifles and bomb throwers multiplied.
The Death Trench was provided with an alternative straight communication line. A light wooden railway track was layed, to enable transport and evacuation by means of the small trucks. Numerous “concrete-brick” shelters were created.
Finally the head of the trench was turned into a deathtrap, surrounded by wolf’s holes and barbed wires, that point was only manned by day time by snipers sheltered in a small concrete sentry box.
The trap was separated from the death trench by a monolithe concrete dug-out of a rather peculiar shape. That shelter was fitted with a heavy steel door, and loopholed to enable hand grenade throwing and automatic rifle’s firing. A vibrating connected the little redoubt with the Commander of the “Cavalier”.