I moved down to the extreme right of the British line; St. Quentin was the goal upon which I had set my mind. In my opinion the taking of that place by a combined Franco-British offensive with the triumphant entry of the troops would make a film second to none. In the first place the preliminary operations pictorially would differ from all previous issues of war films, and in the second place it would be the first film actually showing the point of "liaison" with the French and their subsequent advance—making it, from an historical, public, and sentimental point of view, a film par excellence. Therefore in this section of the British line I made my stand.
I left my H.Q. early in April, 1917. I intended to live at the line in one of the cellars of a small village situated near the Bois de Holnon, which had been totally destroyed.
I proceeded by the main St. Quentin road, through Pouilly into Caulaincourt. The same desolation and wanton destruction was everywhere in evidence; but the most diabolical piece of vandalism was typified by the once beautiful Château of Caulaincourt, which was an awful heap of ruins. The Château had been blown into the Somme, with the object of damming the river, and so flooding the country-side; partially it succeeded, but our engineers were quickly upon the scene and, soon, the river was again running its normal course. The flooded park made an excellent watering-place for horses. The wonderful paintings and tapestries in the library on the Château had been destroyed. As I wandered among the ruins, filming various scenes of our engineers at work sorting out the débris, I noticed many things which must have been of inestimable value. Every statue and ornamentation about the grounds was wilfully smashed to atoms; the flower-pots which lined the edges of the once beautiful floral walks had been deliberately crushed—in fact a more complete specimen of purposeless, wanton destruction it would be impossible to find.
I filmed the most interesting sections; then continued my way through Bouvais on to see the General of a Division. This Division was working near the French left. After a very interesting conversation this officer recommended me to call on a Brigadier-General.
"He is stationed at ——," he said. "I will ring him up and tell him you are on the way. He will give you all the map references of the O.P.'s in the neighbourhood. Anyway, you can make your own arrangements, I suppose, about views?"
"Oh, yes, sir, certainly, so long as I can get very near to the place."
"Right. You go into all these details with General ——."
Thanking him I hurried away. I found the mines which Bosche had exploded at all cross-roads very troublesome, and on one occasion, in endeavouring to cross by way of the field alongside, I got badly stuck; so I had to borrow a couple of horses to get me out on to the road again.
I duly arrived and reported to Brigadier H.Q. It was the cellar of a once decent house by the appearance of the garden. I went down six steps into a chamber reeking with dampness about six feet high by ten feet square; a candle was burning in a bottle on a roughly made table, and, sitting at it, was the General closely studying details on a map.
He looked up as I entered.