Our 1st Cavalry Division had come into the line that night, and supplied the reinforcements without which the exhausted troops could not have held on much longer.
Consequently the ground over which those heroic battles had been fought was of fascinating interest to those of us who had seen the most strenuous struggle of the War.
"As to the losses of the enemy," Nicholson told me, "I once scouted the wood in front of us. It was a terrible sight. In many places among the trees I could not set my foot without stepping on a dead German."
But the work of Haig and his super-men had been crowned with success. We had held the Ypres Salient, and were still holding it—a glorious record.
On the morning of March 3rd Nicholson found it necessary to go once more over the line of our front trenches to verify his map. I was to go with him.
Rain fell all morning, and we splashed over the cross-country route to Brigade Headquarters and the reserve line without incident, bar snipers and itinerant shells, most of which sang over our heads on their way toward Ypres.
One portion of the approach trench leading to the firing-line was so narrow that "Jeff" Hornby, of the 9th Lancers, A.D.C. to General Mullens, waded through it at my heels, "to see the President (my sobriquet) get stuck fast"
In spite of the rain, I procured a sufficient number of photographs to show trench life as no written description could picture it.
The top of the hill was cut and seamed with trenches at all angles, some narrow, some wide. The trench walls had been in a few places reinforced with tree trunks, though, for the most part, from two to half a dozen rows of sandbags served as protection. The line was rarely straight for more than a few yards.