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"Anyhow," said Daintree, "what he told her he told it to me afterwards, so there's no secret about it was this: He got hit in the leg during an advance through one of those woods north of the Somme, Mametz, I think. It was a beastly place. Our fellows had been in there two days before and had to clear out again. Then Simcox's lot went in you know the sort of thing it was?" I nodded.
Indeed from July 4, 1916, onward, there was scarcely any cessation to the German fire on the entire British front, and around Fricourt, Mametz, and Montauban in the background. On July 7, 1916, the British General Staff informed the French high command that they would make an attack on Trônes Wood on the following morning, asking for their cooperation.
H. Cruddace, who was also promoted to be sergeant. A monument was afterwards erected on the Butte to the memory of those of the Battalion who fell on this day. On the following night the Battalion was relieved by the 5th Battalion and went back to Mametz Wood, where it stayed till the end of the month supplying working parties daily. Several new officers joined here, including Lieut.-Col.
A piece of strategy of that kind might have won a decisive battle in an old-time war, but I confess that it did not occur to me to ask who planned it when I heard the story. Strategists became so common on the Somme that everybody took them as much for granted as that every battalion had a commander. Mametz was not taken with the first attack.
Rising out of the slopes toward the Ridge in green patches were three large woods, not to mention small ones, under a canopy of shell-smoke, Mametz, Bernafay and Trônes, with their orgies of combat hidden under their screens of foliage.
The section selected for attack ran from north to south, covering Gommecourt, passing east of Hebuterne and following the high ground before Serre and Beaumont-Hamel, crossed the Ancre northwest of Thiepval. From this point it stretched for about a mile and a quarter to the east of Albert. Passing south around Fricourt, it turned at right angles to the east, covering Mametz and Montauban.
But as I stood by Montauban I saw that our line was a sharp salient looped round Mametz village and then dipping sharply southward to Fricourt. O God! had we only made another salient after all that monstrous effort? To the left there was fury at La Boisselle, where a few broken trees stood black on the skyline on a chalky ridge.
Wherever the Germans had brought a machine gun into action the results of its work lay a stark warning of the necessity of silencing these automatic killers before a charge. Yet from Mametz to Montauban the losses had been light, leaving no doubt that the Germans, convinced that the weight of the attack would be to the north, had been caught napping.
On January 23 we went back to the camp north of Mametz Wood. After a few days we moved off to Albert, and stayed two or three days in a house near the railway line. The town got both bombed and shelled at times, though not very severely. After this we moved off to the village of Dernancourt for a short rest.
About noon a further forward move was made, Y and Z Companies to the northern edge of the wood, and W and X Companies to a position a little further forward between Mametz and Bazentin-le-Petit Woods. So far the Battalion had escaped shell fire, and the men were much interested in prisoners who were being escorted to the rear.
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