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Beyond this lonely spur, the hills ranked and ran, like the masses of a moor, first the high ground above Miraumont, and beyond that the high ground of the Loupart Wood, and away to the east the bulk that makes the left bank of the Ancre River. What trees there are in this moorland were not then all blasted. Even in Beaumont Hamel some of the trees were green.
I learnt that D.H.Q. had moved forward to Grevillers, and on September 3 I decided to make a move forward to Loupart Wood, in order to get the observers more in touch with them. We were badly handicapped in all the succeeding stages of the campaign by having no transport to move our belongings.
The Brigade observers held a post in the old Flers Line, from which good observation was obtained on the ground between Loupart Wood and Grevillers. It was not difficult to get the heavy gunners to fire on German working-parties that were spotted by the observers; and several parties were duly dispersed by our shells.
Regina Trench itself, being on a forward slope and exposed to full view from Loupart Wood, was shelled almost continuously by day and also frequently at night. 'Out and away, 'In and down' became mottoes for runners and all who inhabited the dug-out or were obliged to make repeated visits to it.
I saw our men going into battle with strong battalions and coming out of it with weak battalions. I saw them in the midst of battle at Thiepval, at Contalmaison, at Guillemont, by Loupart Wood, when they trudged toward lines of German trenches, bunching a little in groups, dodging shell-bursts, falling in single figures or in batches, and fighting over the enemy's parapets.
The Loupart Wood occupying high ground along this line had been transformed into a strong field fortress after German methods, and here it was evident every preparation was made for a stiff defense. The British had an enormous task before them in building roads through the recovered ground.
Those fields were strewn with our dead. Our graveyards were growing forests of little white crosses. The German dead lay in heaps. There were twelve hundred corpses littered over the earth below Loupart Wood, in one mass, and eight hundred of them were German. I could not walk without treading on them there. When I fell in the slime I clutched arms and legs.
O. 9. and 'Q. 6. a. 9. 8. where anyone approaching these forward trenches had to cross a ridge and so come under our observation, the German transport roads about Achiet-le-Petit, Irles, and Loupart Wood. The German front line was within 2000 yards, Q. 6. a. within 4000 yards, L. 33. a. rather over 6000 yards, and the roads well over 10,000 yards away.
Grévillers was occupied by the British during the night, their line now stretching along the ridge which runs northwest from that point to the outskirts of Achiet-le-Petit, where the Germans were in possession. In the course of this latest advance Loupart Wood was occupied. It is situated on the shoulder of a high ridge which overlooks the entire Somme battle front.
The trenches themselves were in the shallow valley to the north of Le Sars, looking across to the last ridge that defended Bapaume, with Loupart Wood fringing its crest.
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