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But in the face of all this, fresh troops in ideal conditions might have succeeded. Ours were tired after their journey to Lucheux and back, had had to live several nights in hopelessly foul and water-logged trenches, and, so far from fresh, were almost worn before they started to attack. 3rd July, 1916. 29th Oct., 1916.
Lucheux, a very old French village with its castle and gateway, stands on the edge of a still older forest a few miles North of Doullens, and the majority of the inhabitants, under the guidance of a very energetic Mayor, did all they could to make us comfortable.
Here very pleasant days were spent in training, particularly those on the range at Lucheux Forest, where elaborate field firing schemes were carried out. After about a fortnight there the Battalion was ordered up in reserve for an attack by the 33rd Division and marched to Monchy-au-Bois, where the accommodation was found to consist of an open field in which was a trench line and much wire.
The enemy was not very active, and our most important task was now to prevent him from guessing our intentions. This soon became impossible, for, in addition to the ever increasing Artillery, the new cable trenches, and the Lucheux model, we started to dig a new line of trenches some 100 yards in front of our front line, along the attack sector.
Eloi, we went by motor-'bus through Avesnes-le-comte, Liencourt, Grand Rullecourt, to Lucheux, where we went into billets. We left at Vimy a party of 25 men under Lieut. Most of them gradually became sappers, and we saw very few of them ever again. During these two last months there had been only one important change in the personnel.
Our Brigade was to be in reserve. Meanwhile, a large full-sized model of the German lines was dug near Lucheux forest, where the attacking Brigades started practising at once. Incidentally the model took many acres of arable land, and, though it was very well paid for, the French grumbled loudly, and the 46th Division was known in Lucheux as "les autres Boches."
She went to work the day war began and she has never ceased to work since. She has started something like seventeen hospitals both at the French front and in Saloniki, and her tireless brain has to its credit several notable inventions for moving field hospitals. Near Amiens is the most beautiful of the duc's castles, Lucheux, built in the eleventh century.
The next ten days, spent in Lucheux, were as pleasant as any in the war. After the mud, cold and damp of Vimy, we could well appreciate the spring weather, the good billets and the excellent country in which we now found ourselves.
She herself is an infirmière major and not only goes back and forth constantly to the hospitals in which she is interested, particularly Lucheux, but sometimes nurses day and night. I was very anxious to see Lucheux, as well as Arras, which is not far from Amiens, and, a vast ruin, is said to be by moonlight the most beautiful sight on earth. We both besieged the War Office. But in vain.
This she turned into a hospital during the first battle of the Somme in 1915, and as it could only accommodate a limited number she had hospital tents erected in the park. Seven hundred were cared for there. Lucheux is now a hospital for officers.
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