ob
finding the way to the various positions allotted for my guns, burdened
as I was with all my sections and impedimenta. I imagine I walked about
five or six miles that night. We held a front of about a mile, and,
therefore, not only did I have to do the above-mentioned mile and a
half, but also two or three miles going from end to end of our line. It
was as dark as could be, and the unfamiliar ground seemed to be pitted
like a Gruyere cheese with shell holes. Unlimbering back near a farm we
sloshed off across the mud flat towards the section of trench which we
had been ordered to occupy. I trusted to instinct to strike the right
angles for coming out at the trenches which henceforth were to be ours.
In those days my machine guns were the old type of Maxim--a very weighty
concern. To carry these guns and all the necessary ammunition across
this desert was a long and very exhausting process. Occasional bursts of
machine-gun fire and spent bullets "zipping" into the mud all around
hardly tended to cheer the proceedings. The path along to the right-hand
set of trenches, where I knew a couple of guns must go, was lavishly
strewn with dead cows and pigs. When we paused for a rest we always
seemed to do so alongside some such object, and consequently there was
no hesitation in moving on again. None of us had the slightest idea as
to the nature of the country on which we were now operating. I myself
had only seen it by night, and nobody else had been there at all.

The commencement of the journey from the farm of disembarkation lay
along what is known as corduroy boards. These are short, rough, wooden
planks, nailed crossways on long baulks of timber. This kind of path is
a very popular one at the front, and has proved an immense aid in saving
the British army from being swallowed up in the mud.

The corduroy path ran out about four hundred yards across the grassless,
sodden field. We then came suddenly to the beginning of a road. A small
cottage stood on the right, and in front of it a dead cow. Here we
unfortunately paused, but almost immediately moved on (gas masks weren't
introduced until much later!).

From this point the road ran in a long straight line towards Messines.
At intervals, on the right-hand side only, stood one or two farms, or,
rather, their skeletons. As we went along in the darkness these farms
silhouetted their dreary remains against the faint light in the sky, and
looked like vast decayed wrecks of an