| THE BUTTE DE WARLENCOURT This small chalk mound was one of the most difficult obstacles on the way to Bapaume. In the foreground a large 'crump-hole' and the remains of a little copse. |
January 11.
AEROPLANE PHOTOGRAPHS
I don't know when leave will be possible. This job is rather in the making, and is really very important stuff. A great responsibility, says the corps commander. In fact, I am just a bit nervous about things generally. That battery that was reported in so-and-so wood. Is it there still? Well, where has it moved to, then? You are not sure? Why not? No recent photographs of it? But why not? Can it be in so-and-so quarry, perhaps? That light railway has been repeatedly smashed up by our heavies. Repaired? What? What evidence have you? Let me have a map as soon as possible, showing exactly where you believe that line has been repaired, and the exact position of that battery in the quarry—if it really is there. But don't tell me it's in the quarry unless you are quite sure. Yes, sir. And you'd better have the map duplicated. How many can the draughtsmen print before to-morrow? About 300. Well, send out copies. I must have that battery silenced at once. Do you see? Can I rely on it being sent out in time? Yes, sir.
That's the sort of thing. Things that must be done and quickly. Perhaps it sounds nothing much—a mere bit of a map. But maps are like lamps to men in the dark. And they must be accurate. To me, therefore, the most inaccurate, absent-minded mortal before the war that ever breathed, it is all a source of great anxiety.
January 12.
I've got a bedroom with a brick floor in a cottage. I really hardly know what it's like, as I arrive there about twelve o'clock every night and fall into bed, and then up again at 7.30 next morning as a rule, and frowsy at that. The roads here are just as muddy as ever, and if you go off the roads you go too deep. We are camouflaging the whole place, and I think it will soon be very difficult for the Huns to see it. At least, when I say "we" are camouflaging, I mean that I run out for two minutes about every three hours, and give hurried directions to a few bewildered men, and rush in again. I'm sure they think the extraordinary patterns that I order them to paint all over the huts, etc., are quite mad. The R.F.C. show isn't ready yet, but it's likely to be so shortly.