The actual relief was fixed for May 6th, and the interval was fully occupied by practice attacks, first of the 8th K.L.R., and later by the 172nd Infantry Brigade, assisted by contact aeroplanes.
The time had now arrived for us to leave our peaceful bivouacs and take a more active part in the war. The lengthened stay and the improvement in the weather had enabled us to make our temporary homes a little less primitive than when we took them over, and we were quite sorry to leave them. The surrounding country consisted of fine undulating downs, rolling in long sweeps for miles in every direction. The villages were mostly rustic and pretty, and the woods dotted about in all directions were showing the first signs of young spring green.
May 6th proved fine and warm. The morning was busy with the final preparations for the line and in sorting out the party which formed the "lifeboat," which was destined for the Divisional Camp at Marieux. Strict instructions had been issued that the full 33⅓ per cent. were to be left out, and the party included Captains Eccles and Fell, Lieutenants James and Burton, 2nd-Lieutenants Carr and Upward, and eighty-two other ranks. These marched off at 2 p.m. Rear headquarters were also arranged for at Couin, and consisted of Major C. W. Wilson, the Adjutant (sick), and 2nd-Lieutenant Harris, who was in charge of the Brigade relay stretcher-bearers—also kept out of the line for use in the event of the "push."
The battalion moved off at 3 p.m. to Souastre, where teas were served, and after dark the march into the line commenced. Souastre itself was fairly intact, though the Germans occasionally shelled it with a heavy gun, as certain houses mutely testified. After leaving Souastre the road proceeded almost straight into Fonquevillers, cutting right across open rolling country, and passing through most formidable lines of guns. Endless shell-holes in all directions, both on the road and on either side of it, revealed the fondness of the enemy for "crashing" this main approach to the line, a practice which our gunners had taught him to realize by bitter experience could be very effective. Just before reaching Fonquevillers the road entered a wood, and that point was particularly favoured by the attentions of the Germans.
After passing through this stretch of wood the miserable remains of Fonquevillers village were reached—another very "unhealthy" spot—on the far side of which the tramway to the trenches began. This most important adjunct to trench life was a very favourite target of the enemy. At the place where the tram-line started waggons and fatigue parties used to congregate after dark, to deliver and collect those various items of food and equipment which did so much to make life tolerable. Knowing this full well, the enemy used to open at intervals a concentrated fire on this spot, and woe betide the men that were gathered there at the moment. A series of blinding flashes and terrific explosions was the first warning that you got, and if the shelling was accurate it was at once the beginning and the end. As a matter of fact, however, we were extremely lucky. Not once did our rations get caught at this danger point.
The track led along a glade through Gommecourt Park, once a fine wood of noble trees, now a shattered skeleton of blackened stumps and splintered branches looking gaunt and spectral. A wonderful place this wood had been when the Germans held it. Huge dug-outs were concealed beneath it, with many an underground passage and machine-gun posts cunningly concealed in steel trees which counterfeited most cleverly the surrounding trunks. No wonder the opening attack in 1916 found this place wellnigh impregnable. No wonder the French Government had put up huge notices that the park was preserved as a national memorial, albeit the notices that no work was to be undertaken here without permission of the French Government were now riddled with bullets and splintered with shrapnel. The tide of war had flowed up to Gommecourt Park once more.
On either side of the track were endless pieces of trench and dug-outs, a very handy refuge in time of trouble; and it was with some slight sense of loneliness that you left the protection of these on the far side for a longish walk across the barest of bare open ground, heading for a lone bush which marked the line of direction to the British trenches. The frequent "whizz-bang" holes, some of very recent date, showed that the track was well known to the enemy.
In every direction were compact woods of varying size and geometrical pattern. Biez, Pigeon, the more famous Rossignol Wood, were all distinctive features in the landscape; and by day one expected to see those fleecy white puffs suddenly appearing above them and gradually dissipating again into the air which marked the British shrapnel, or, again, the blacker and more ominous clouds of the German fire.
It was dark when the battalion wound its way along the Souastre—Fonquevillers road, and not only dark but raining. As the night drew on it got blacker and blacker, while the rain increased to a torrential downpour. The Commanding Officer of the Lancashire Fusiliers had suffered severely during his own relief by the ignorance of the guides supplied to him. To prevent a recurrence of this, because a late relief hits both parties, his guides had been over the track nightly, to make certain of the road; but this night the elements were against them. They lost their way, and two companies were piloted into the right battalion sector, and only achieved the relief of their opposite numbers after wanderings comparable with those of the Lost Tribes of Israel. On a drenching night, with an active enemy opposite you, and with dawn approaching, such a trudge in the dark, stumbling over obstacles and wading through mud and water, is no small task, and the men's language, if free, was hardly to be criticized.
The relief was complete at 5 a.m., which left the remnants of the Lancashire Fusiliers the minimum of time to get out of sight before daylight broke—a proceeding that was most necessary where the enemy had excellent observation, and usually considered a party exceeding three or four a fair target. "C" and "D" Companies were in the front line, which may roughly be described as running from Biez to Rossignol Woods. "B" Company was in support, and "A" Company in reserve.