he old
communication trenches still white and clean, it is called Tara Hill.
Far away on the left, along the line of the Usna Hill, one can see the
Aveluy Wood.

Looking northward from the top of the Usna-Tara Hill to the dip below
it and along the road for a few yards up the opposite slope, one sees
where the old English front line crossed the road at right angles. The
enemy front line faced it at a few yards' distance, just about two
miles from Albert town.

The fourth of the four roads runs for about a mile eastwards from
Albert, and then slopes down into a kind of gully or shallow valley,
through which a brook once ran and now dribbles. The road crosses the
brook-course, and runs parallel with it for a little while to a place
where the ground on the left comes down in a slanting tongue and on
the right rises steeply into a big hill. The ground of the tongue
bears traces of human habitation on it, all much smashed and
discoloured. This is the once pretty village of Fricourt. The hill on
the right front at this point is the Fricourt Salient. The lines run
round the salient and the road cuts across them.

Beyond Fricourt, the road leaves another slanting tongue at some
distance to its left. On this second tongue the village of Mametz once
stood. Near here the road, having now cut across the salient, again
crosses both sets of lines, and begins a long, slow ascent to a ridge
or crest. From this point, for a couple of miles, the road is planted
on each side with well-grown plane-trees, in some of which magpies
have built their nests ever since the war began. At the top of the
rise the road runs along the plateau top (under trees which show more
and more plainly the marks of war) to a village so planted that it
seems to stand in a wood. The village is built of red brick, and is
rather badly broken by enemy shell fire, though some of the houses in
it are still habitable. This is the village of Maricourt. Three or
four hundred yards beyond Maricourt the road reaches the old English
front line, at the eastern extremity of the English sector, as it was
at the beginning of the battle.

These four roads which lead to the centre and the wings of the
battlefield were all, throughout the battle and for the months of war
which preceded it, dangerous by daylight. All could be shelled by the
map, and all, even the first, which was by much the best hidden of the
four, could be seen, in places, from the enemy position. On some of