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The observers sent up two parties of two men every day to an O.P. north-east of Hébuterne. The other men manned a battle O.P. on the Bayencourt Ridge during the morning. April 23, St. George's Day, provided a little excitement for three of us. We were told to try to find an O.P. near the Quarries at Hébuterne, not generally a very healthy spot.

It was full of French civilians, and the small shops had various little luxuries to which we had been unused for some time. From Authie Woods to Bayencourt ran the 'Red Line' trenches, a sort of 'last-but-one' reserve line, which had been hastily dug by Chinese labourers and were still only about four feet deep.

Still more monstrous guns came crawling up, and in place of the old battery of 60-pounders, the orchard at the western outskirts of Sailly, in the angle of the Bayencourt road, harboured two 15-inch howitzers. Gun-pits and enormous new dugouts were constructed in Hébuterne.

From May 4 to June 9 the Division remained in the rest area about Couin. The observers left Bayencourt and joined the 7th N.F. at Coigneux, where we lived in tents on the high chalky ground south of Rossignol Farm. I messed with the officers of A Company, and shared a tent with Lieut W.H. Fisher and 2nd-Lieut Dodd.

The same day the observers moved to some old trenches north of the Château de la Haie. It was a cold place in wet weather, and we were occasionally shelled. But after a few days through the kindness of Col. Guy, the G.S.O. I, billets were found for us in a cottage at Bayencourt, which lies about half a mile south of the château. It was indeed a pleasant oasis in a badly shelled area.

During this month the observers had a little mild training each day; but the G.O.C. sent word to me to rest the men as much as possible. I amused myself at the battle O.P. on Bayencourt Ridge and sent in daily reports of sound bearings to the IV Corps Counter-Battery Office. On the whole the enemy let our camp fairly well alone.

Perhaps the general calmness was affecting them with kindred thoughts, though an Englishman never shows them. On the left stood the stumpy spire of Bayencourt Church just left by us. On the right lay Sailly-au-Bois in its girdle of trees.

We had done about a quarter of the ground between Bayencourt and Sailly-au-Bois when a messenger hurried up to tell me to halt, as several of the platoons of the L S had to pass us. We sat down by a large shell-hole, and the men lit up their pipes and cigarettes and shouted jokes to the men of the other regiment as they passed by.

But towards the end of March the weather grew warm and genial and the wild daffodils began to appear in all the fields around Sailly. Meanwhile the preliminaries for the Somme offensive became increasingly significant. The forward villages such as Sailly and Bayencourt were cleared of the civil population, and handed over entirely to the Army.

After 36 hours in the wood we packed up again and moved by night through Authie, afterwards most familiar and welcome of rest billets, passing Coignieux, where the French gunners, sitting by their fires in the horse lines, called out greetings, and ascended the northern hill to Bayencourt, a stinking little village full of flies and odours.