grit of our men held the line, for it was
practically impossible to give directions or exercise control in this
horrible terrain.

During this period we got much "mixed" as regards our machine-guns. We
took over some from the 7th Division and lost some of those. Then we
borrowed some more from other units in rear and recovered some of the
lost ones. Sergeant Mart of the Bedfords did a splendid thing, and
recovered two of the lost Bedford guns practically by himself,
stalking the Germans with only one other man and rushing their trench,
killing the few men in it. I wanted to recommend him for the V.C., but
had such difficulty in getting sufficient evidence about it that an
official recommendation would not have held water. Meanwhile poor Mart
was shot through the neck. I got him a D.C.M., but do not know whether
he lived to receive it.

Then three out of our five guns got damaged by shells and bullets and
mud and stopped work. So we borrowed some more, and had some
difficulty in working them, as they were a new pattern. By the time we
understood them two other guns were _hors de combat_,--it was a real
nightmare, and it needed strenuous efforts to keep even one or two
guns[22] going; yet they were of enormous importance, and accounted
for a lot of the enemy, especially on the right flank of the
Cheshires.

[Footnote 22: It does indeed seem extraordinary now that in
those strenuous days of 1914 we only had about three
machine-guns to two battalions. Nowadays we should have at
least twenty!]

Meanwhile the weather had turned beastly cold--snowstorms and sleet
during the day and a hard frost at night. The men suffered terribly in
the trenches--especially the Cheshires, whose trenches were very wet.
Although we kept the wet ones occupied as lightly as possible, we
could not abandon them altogether and dig others further forward or
back, as there was water everywhere only a foot below the ground.
Breastworks were attempted, but they were very visible and attracted
large numbers of shells: altogether the Cheshires had a very poor
time, I fear. The Bedfords were rather better off, their trenches in
the wood being on rather higher and sandy ground, but they were not
dry by any means.

It was very awkward getting to the trenches, even in broad daylight,
by this time, for such numbers of trees had been blown down by the
shells, there were so many shell-holes and so much wire about, and t