The news of this threw everything into a miniature ferment. The Berks stopped practising a raid which they were to do on the Brigade's return to the old trenches. The General rode off apace. After orders and counter-orders the 2/4th marched dramatically to a map reference near Lihons and commenced pulling logs out of old French dug-outs. Much good work was done, but I believe the logs were never used. On the next day German aeroplanes saw the Battalion parade at X 17 c 3. 8. and march to its old billets at Rainecourt. Never was the old song 'Here we are again' more heartily rendered.
Meanwhile Divisional Headquarters advanced and seized a colony of dug-outs at Vermandovillers. Great eagerness was shown by everyone to see what the enemy had left behind and whither he had gone. Often during the advance parties of Infantry detailed to clear a village found members of a Royal Corps already in possession. In this race of the curious we were severely handicapped, for it had fallen to the 182nd Brigade to be the Advanced Guard of the 61st Division and to the 184th to follow in reserve. To us the task of roadmaking in No-Man's-Land was assigned. This proved quite interesting work. Except where shells had fallen on them or trenches been dug through, the roads, when once the mud had been removed, were found virtually intact. Soon G.S. wagons and limbers and 18-pounders were passing forward. The war was on the move.
To explore the former German trenches was a pleasing novelty. The front line was deep and fairly dry. Elbow marks at every 50 yards or so and bombs with caps screwed off vouched for the situation of old sentry posts. Communication trenches were derelict, nor did proper support nor second lines exist. The enemy's defence had been the merest shell.
The Battalion moved to Chaulnes on March 22. That village, damaged by our artillery, had been finally wrecked by the departing enemy, whose rude notices were scrawled on any walls still standing. 'One million tons of English shipping sunk in the month of February,' said one more polite than others. In spite of all that the Germans had done, quite good accommodation was found for all ranks, and its improvement by old doors, shutters, and selected débris from other ruins provided much amusement. Father Buggins and the Doctor, with a wheelbarrow, were to the fore collecting armchairs covered in red velvet. Stoves and fuel were abundant, and at this time booby-traps were few.
March 23 was spent in road mending between Vermandovillers and Chaulnes. An example of how surely organisation wins wars was there provided. We, who had come from Chaulnes, to work near Chaulnes were sent to fetch our tools from Vermandovillers. In fetching them we passed a company of Devons, employed on similar work at Vermandovillers, who were fetching their tools from Chaulnes—an episode fit for a war-pageant.
On the same afternoon we marched to Marchélepot. German sign-posts, old gun positions and burnt dug-outs were objects of interest on the way. Though cold, the weather was fine. Freedom from shelling was a treat. We moved again on March 25, when the Bucks arrived to take over our quarters at Marchélepot. Passing St. Christ, where the R.E. had bridged the Somme, we saw the first samples of German back-area demolition. At Ennemain the first big road-crater held up the Transport. Our destination, Athies, formerly a flourishing little town but since utterly wrecked and still smouldering, it was quite difficult to reach. Sent on ahead as member of a billeting party, I had to cross the Omignon river by a single plank thrown across a weir. Until they are blown up one rather forgets the blessing of bridges.
In Athies good enough quarters in cellars and half-basements were found for all. Headquarters went into the only roofed house in the town—and afterwards questioned their own wisdom. The house had been foreman's shed to a large factory, had been a Boche canteen, and, finally, the billet of the wrecking party. Though our advanced troops were in touch with the enemy some seven miles away in front, we were made to hold an outpost line each night east of the town. To bring up rations the Transport had all the distance from Framerville to cover—about eighteen miles. Never had Abraham so long a journey for this purpose.
The wanton mischief, now manifest everywhere that the advance carried us, became a favourite topic for correspondents from the front, but cannot be passed over without some record here. To us Infantry this advance was a sort of holiday from the real war. It was like going behind the scenes at a pantomime and discovering the secrets of the giant's make-up. No list of things destroyed could lend any conception of the wholesale massacre by the Germans of all objects both natural and artificial. Château and cottage, tree and sapling, factory and summer-house, mill race and goldfish pond were victims equally of their madness. Hardly the most trivial article had been spared. The completeness of the work astonished. Yet withal our discomfort was slight. It was the French civilians, whose lives and homes had been thus ruined, that such Prussian methods touched.
Amid this wreckage signs were perceptible of the enemy's weakening morale. Villages in no wise organised for defence and so remote from the German front as to have been outside the range of our furthest gun-fire, inevitably contained deep dug-outs. Such precautions surpassed all prudence and were sufficient almost to argue lack of mental balance. Germans seemed crazy on dug-outs.
To resume the war. On March 30 the Warwicks entered Soyécourt and shortly afterwards the Bucks relieved their outpost line. We ourselves reached Tertry on the 30th, and the next night made bivouacs at Caulaincourt Château, formerly German Corps Headquarters, now wrecked past recognition. Amid the rubbish, whose heaps represented buildings of grace and dignity, the eye caught the half of a gigantic Easter egg. During our stay a German High Velocity gun several times shelled the château grounds. Our own artillery was now getting to work and made the nights lively with noise and flashes.