ncluded the village of Vimy. The whole area from Neuville St. Vaast,
across the ridge and down to the village, was a depressing sight;
villages and fields ravaged by the fire, not of one, but of many
battles. Neuville St. Vaast had once been a town of some size; now one
looked in vain for even one standing wall. There was more of Vimy left
and under collapsed houses were deep dug-outs of German origin. At this
time the army of Prince Ruprecht was somewhere opposite and an attack
was expected. In fact some details were given. There was to be a three
hours' preparatory bombardment, commencing at 22:30 on the 9th, but it
was merely one of these periodical alarms that one had got fairly well
accustomed to. It is a curious fact that as a rule when in the line one
does not expect to be attacked, hence when anything was expected the
wires were busy with "vigilance," etc. About this time leave opened and
many a well-earned leave was granted.

On night of 14/15th we took over part of front line from 7th H.L.I.
Having been regularly supplied in the East with all the military
publications, including books of plans of beautiful trenches, we were
surprised to find what a difference there was between theory and
practice. The explanation was fairly simple, however, as each battalion
had a few miles of trenches in their sector and it was impossible to
have them all dug to a plan. Still, as had always been our lot, there
was any amount of digging to be done and we had to get down to it. Night
patrols here found little. The Bosche front line was only held by a few
posts. Patrolling was found to be very different from Palestine; there
the ground was smooth, except for nullahs, and the stars were always out
to guide one, here shell holes threw one's direction out and the stars
were rarely seen. The result was that the first patrol was a little late
in returning, as it came back the night after it started, having spent a
quiet day sitting in a shell hole and noting the route they should have
taken home the night before.

To give in detail our life in the Vimy sector would not make interesting
reading as it was a quiet time. The enemy shelling was not heavy and was
confined to a few favourite spots. At night he sent over a few gas
shells, but never in great numbers, and the damage done was trifling. On
the other hand, night after night he received thousands of shells of all
sizes from our gunners, especially from 6-inch howitzers, and none