Our visit had been arranged for us by Captain Fresson, the French liaison officer attached to 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters. General de Lisle, Colonel Home, Major Hambro, Fresson and I were in the party.
Coming out of Bethune, on the Lens road, we passed through Beuvry, then through Shilly-Labourse.
In the fields by the roadside were trenches, increasing in frequency along the road from Sailly to Noyelles-lez-Vermelles.
When Noyelles was passed, and we could glance across the slightly rolling fields that led eastwards to Vermelles, a mile distant, a little world of trenches met the eye. Some giant, prehistoric mole, crazed with pain and bent on expending his agony on the surface of Mother Earth, might have so ripped the fields.
Not rows of trenches, but curved and twisting galleries upon galleries of them. For the first time I began to get an inkling of what real trench warfare—the battles of the pick and shovel—meant.
At the headquarters of the French General who was in command of that section of the line a most elaborate déjeuner had been prepared for the party, with the result that it was well into the afternoon before we left the hospitable Frenchman and, in tow of a member of his staff, commenced our tour of sight-seeing.
Most buildings thereabouts were shell-scarred; some were burned. No inhabitants were to be seen. The boom of distant shells was ever present, and now and then one burst in sight of us. Detachments of French infantry marched past frequently.
We ran to Noyelles, which was full of hard-as-nails-looking French soldiers.
There the party alighted, and guided by a young French infantry officer, who had seen the fighting over that ground, walked across the trench-scarred battle-field eastward to Vermelles.
I followed sufficiently far to gain an idea of the lie of the land, then returned to Noyelles and took my car to Vermelles by road, arriving in advance of the others. This allowed me a long stroll of inspection, to be augmented later by a second tour in the company of the General, with a French Staff officer as escort.