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On Christmas Day I went to dinner with the 7th N.F. at their H.Q., and was very hospitably entertained. The Brigade moved from Bresle to a camp at Bécourt on November 28, and stayed there two days; and then took over from a Brigade of the 1st Division at Bazentin-le-Petit.
Jeffreys returned from Brigade Headquarters with orders to move up at once. Accordingly the Battalion paraded and marched up the road to the Quarry at Bazentin-le-Petit. By this time the area was full of movement. Guns, ammunition, ration wagons and troops were everywhere moving up after the advance.
On the evening of August 26, 1916, the British captured several hundred yards of German trenches north of Bazentin-le-Petit and pushed forward some distance north of Ginchy. After gaining a trench of 470 yards south of Thiepval and taking over 200 prisoners, the British on August 24, 1916, joined up with the French forces on the right, where important progress was made around Maurepas.
They were somewhere on the high ground south of Bazentin-le-Grand when the German Guard had massed for an attack on Contalmaison. These guns had the extraordinary chance of firing with open sights on the dense German masses behind Bazentin-le-Petit and they had inflicted terrible losses on the Brandenburghers.
On December 30, 1916, the Brigade was in the reserve area about Bazentin-le-Petit, and ready to take over the line of trenches running eastwards from a point south of the Butte of Warlencourt. No material change had taken place on this part of the front since the fruitless attack of November 11.
We were now immediately to follow them into battle, for next day a fleet of motor-'buses bore us south to the crowded village of Senlis behind the Ovillers La Boisselle Sector of the Somme front. The successful night attack of July 14th had eaten into the third German line between Longueval and Bazentin-le-Petit on a front of some three miles.
The following day the march was resumed to a hut camp near the quarry at Bazentin-le-Petit, well known to the few remaining survivors of the 15th September. After a few days in this camp, troubled only by an occasional shell, a move was made into High Wood West camp, a cheerless place consisting of black tarpaulin huts. The support line, where a few days were spent, was just in front of Flers.
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