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Some excellent coils I found of American manufacture. Pickets were improvised. Thus liberated by the amateur assortment of our tools from the irksome tyranny of army wiring circulars, we set about the work and soon put up some of the best wire of my experience. In Holnon the life was a new sample of unpleasantness.
So the next day, having exchanged positions with a Gloucester company, we lay in holes and watched the 5.9s raising their clouds of red brick-dust in Holnon. Fayet was left alone, nor did the sunken road receive attention. It was a balmy day, the first of spring. At night another minor operation preceded the relief.
Corps lines ceased to be the show-places for Russian colonels, and the Corps Commander's gardener paused before sowing a new season's peas in the château grounds. G.H.Q. were agog. A German vantage-point. Shell-ridden Holnon. A night of confusion. Preparing for the raid of April 28. The enemy taken by surprise. The Battalion's first V.C. The affair at Cepy Farm.
The three Battalions which remained were now arranged in 'depth, a phrase explained by stating that while one, say the Berks, held the front line 'twixt Fayet and Gricourt, the Gloucesters as Support Battalion would be in Holnon Wood and ourselves, the Oxfords, in reserve and back at Ugny.
They reached the 'Battle Line' of trenches east of Holnon Wood, and there joined the Gloucesters, who had not yet been engaged in the fighting. The enemy, having captured Maissemy, Fayet, and Holnon, paused to reorganise as evening fell.
The Division's move from the Bray-Suzanne area to south of the Somme heralded a new relief of the French, whose line was now to be shortened by the amount on its left flank between St. Quentin and La Fère. About January 11 the Battalion found itself once more in Holnon Wood, where a large number of huts and dug-outs had been made by the French since last spring.
Quentin had extended their hold on Holnon Ridge and occupied Ronssoy Wood farther to the north, while in the region of Arras they captured after stiff fighting the village of Henin. South of the Ailette River the French fought their way forward foot by foot.
Of accommodation, save for a few low walls and half-roofed cellars, there was no trace. What Holnon lacked in billets it received in shells. With intervals possibly only those of German mealtimes during the day and nearly throughout the night, 5.9s and 4.2s were throwing up the brick-dust, till it seemed reasonable to ask why in wonder's name the Battalion or any living soul was kept in Holnon.
Those coming made a left-handed turn at Savy, hugged the line of single railway as far as a crucifix at a cross-roads, and were then lost to distinct view amid the abject ruins of Holnon. Those going were the 32nd Division, whose march carried them out of the cathedral's eye or observation by German balloons.
All day small parties were moving in the forward zone, while further back larger ones crossed and re-crossed the ridge 'twixt Holnon and Fayet, and in rear again, along the road through Savy to Germaine, columns of Infantry in fours followed by horses, vehicles, and smoking cooker-chimneys, were passing one another, some coming, others going back.
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