MAP III.
Map III is an enlargement of the area in Map II, and gives details of our trenches and the German trenches opposite. I wish I could convey the sense of intimacy with which I am filled when I look at this map. It is something like the feelings I should ascribe to a farmer looking at a map of his property, every inch of which he knows by heart; every field, every copse, every lane, every hollow and hill are intimate things to him. With every corner he has some association; every tree cut down, every fence repaired, every road made up, every few hundred yards of shaw grubbed up, every acre of orchard enclosed and planted—all these he can call back to memory at his will. So do I know every corner, every turning in these trenches; every traverse has its peculiar familiarity, very often its peculiar history. This traverse was built the night after P——’s death; this trench was dug because “75 Street” was so marked down by the enemy rifle-grenades; another was a terrible straight trench till we built those traverses in it; another was a morass until we boarded it. How well I remember being half buried by a canister at the corner of “78 Street”; and the night the mine blew in all the trench between the Fort and the Loop; what an awful dug-out that was at Trafalgar Square; how we loathed the straightness of Watling Street. And so on, ad infinitum. We were in those trenches for over four months, and I know them as one knows the creakings of the doors at home, the subtle smell of the bath-room, the dusty atmosphere of the box-room, or the lowness of the cellar door. Particularly intimate are the recollections of dug-outs, with their good or bad conveniences in the way of beds and tables, their beams that smote you on the head as regularly as clockwork, or their peculiarly musty smell. One dug-out invariably smelt of high rodent; another of sand-bag, nothing but sand-bag.
From February, then, to June we kept on going into these trenches drawn on Map III, and then back to Morlancourt for rest and working-parties, all as regular as clockwork. Once or twice the actual front line held by our battalion was altered, so that I have been in the trenches all along from the Cemetery (down in the valley) to the end of the craters opposite Danube Trench. But every time except twice my company held part of the trench between 83 B (the end of the craters) and the Lewis gun position to the right of 76 Street. The usual distribution of the battalion was as follows:—
| A | Company. | From 80 A to L. G. (Lewis gun) on right of 76. |
| B | ” | Maple Redoubt. |
| C | ” | 71 North. |
| D | ” | L. G. on right of 76 to 73 Street. |
(After three days A and B, and C and D, relieved each other.)
| Battalion Headquarters, Headquarter Bombers, M.O. and H.Q. Stretcher-bearers R.S.M. | Maple Redoubt. |
Maple Redoubt was what is known as a “strong point.” In case of an enemy attack piercing our front line, the company in Maple Redoubt held out at all costs to the last man, even if the enemy got right past and down the hill. There was a dug-out which was provisioned full up with bully-beef and water (in empty petrol cans) ready for this emergency. There was a certain amount of barbed-wire put out in front of the trenches to N., W., and E.; and there were two Lewis-gun positions at A and B. Really it was not a bad little place, although the “Defences of Maple Redoubt” were always looked on by us as rather more of a big joke than anything. No one ever really took seriously the thought of the enemy coming over and reaching Maple Redoubt. Raid the front line he was liable to do at any moment; but attack on such a big scale as to come right through, no, no one really ever (beneath the rank of battalion commander, anyway) worried about that. Still, if he did, there was the redoubt anyway; and there was another called “Redoubt A” on the hill facing us, as one looked from Maple Redoubt across the smoke rising from dug-outs which could just not be seen under the bank at 71 North. Here was rumoured to be bully-beef and water also, and the Machine-gun Corps had some positions in it which they visited occasionally; but even a notice “No one allowed this way,” failed to tempt me to explore its interior. One saw it, traced out on the hill, from Maple Redoubt, and there I have no doubt it still is, with its bully-beef intact and its water a little stale!