were dugouts and little huts well sandbagged. Over the top was
spread a quantity of camouflage netting, so that the place was
invisible to German aeroplanes. The country round about was cut up by
trenches, and in many of these our battalions were stationed. All the
villages in the neighbourhood were hopeless ruins. I tried to get a
billet in the forward area, as Arras was so far back, but every
available place was crowded and it was so difficult to get up rations
that nobody was anxious to have me.

CHAPTER XXXII. (p. 292)

THE SMASHING OF THE DROCOURT-QUEANT LINE.

_September 2nd, 1918._

On Saturday, August 31st, I paid a visit to our Battle Headquarters,
and the General asked me to have a Celebration of the Holy Communion
there the next morning at eight. I knew that the attack was almost
due, so I prepared for it and took my iron rations with me. We had the
Communion Service in a tent at the General's Headquarters. There were
only three present, but the General was one of them. I had breakfast
in a quaint little hut in the side of the trench, and then started off
to the forward area. The great stretch of country was burnt dry by the
summer heat and the roads were broken up and dusty. I was taken by car
to the Headquarters of the 2nd Brigade which were in a trench, and
from thence I started on foot to Cherisy. Here the 8th Battalion were
quartered, the 5th being in the line. Zero hour, I was told, was early
the next morning. The 2nd and 3rd Brigades were to make the attack.
The 5th Battalion was to have advanced that day and taken possession
of a certain trench which was to be the jumping off line on the
following morning. I heard that they had had a hard time. They had
driven out the Germans, but had been seriously counter-attacked and
had lost a large number of men. I determined therefore to go out and
take them some cigarettes and biscuits which the Y.M.C.A. generously
provided. I started off in the afternoon to go to the front line,
wherever it might be. I went down the road from Cherisy past the
chalk-pit, where we had a little cemetery, and then turning into the
fields on the left walked in the direction in which I was told the 5th
Battalion lay. It was a long, hot journey, and as I had not quite
recovered from my attack of influenza I found it very fatiguing. On
all sides I saw gruesome traces of the recent fighting. I came across
the body of a yo