The ruins of Achicourt continued to smoulder through the night.
[20]“It had just been very badly shelled by the enemy. Two sides of the square were burned and blasted away (it had been all right, nearly, when I passed through it a few days before). The ruins still smoked and glowed, and shadowy working parties shovelled rubbish into shell craters to make them passable for transport and cleared a way through the sorry wreck. Smashed limbers, strings of dead mules, burnt-out and buckled motor lorries, transport wagons, and the like, all rather weird and depressing, the red glow of some other conflagration as a background, and this stabbed with the flicker of white light from our guns, little and great—thousands of them (actually), a throbbing roar in the distance, and fit to deafen you anywhere near. The great thing is to go about with an open mouth. It equalises the pressure on your ear-drums. I am acquiring a permanent droop of the lower jaw. Anyway, a discouraged, shell-shaken sentry told me that one could not go through for the shells, mostly our own, exploding in the fire, and refused to let me take the car in. It did not look anything like as bad as he tried to make out—from the danger point of view—and indeed when I walked through there were the working parties stolidly filling up the craters by the light of the glowing ruins. Having fulfilled my mission, I got back to report at Brigade Headquarters about 4 a.m., and then set out again at 4.30 to follow the battle and note and report the doings of our Willies.”
A DERELICT. VALLEY OF THE SCARPE
A BURNING TANK
“DIRECT HITS”
BELLIED ON A TREE-STUMP AND SUBSEQUENTLY HIT