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Updated: May 5, 2025
This was about 1000 yards from the front line, which lay just below the ridge from Martinpuich to High Wood. A deep C.T. called 'Jutland Alley' took us up to the front line 'Clark's Trench. So far we had little trouble from shelling, but we passed over the bodies of two unfortunate Highlanders in Jutland Alley who had been recently killed by a shell.
It named customers at Thiepval, Martinpuich, Courcelette, Combles, Longueval, Contalmaison, Pozières, Guillemont, Montauban. It was not easy to understand it, my knowledge of those places being what it was.
Flers, Martinpuich, Courcelette, and Eaucourt l'Abbaye have fallen within the past week, and the tanks have made their first ungainly bow before the curtain of war, with the superlatives of the war correspondent in close attendance. Leave from France has been cancelled indefinitely.
"The bloodbath of the Somme," as the Germans called it, was ours as well as theirs, and scores of times when I saw the dead bodies of our men lying strewn over those dreadful fields, after desperate and, in the end, successful attacks through the woods of death Mametz Wood, Delville Wood, Trones Wood, Bernafay Wood, High Wood, and over the Pozieres ridge to Courcellette and Martinpuich I thought of Rawlinson in his chateau in Querrieux, scheming out the battles and ordering up new masses of troops to the great assault over the bodies of their dead... Well, it is not for generals to sit down with their heads in their hands, bemoaning slaughter, or to shed tears over their maps when directing battle.
I took the liberty of transposing three pronouns from the first person to the second, so as to apostrophise our Boche brethren. The patrol finished, my pilot spiralled down to within a 300-yard range of the ground and flew along the road past Martinpuich, while I pumped lead at anything that might be a communication trench.
Many Scots of the 15th and 9th Divisions, many New-Zealanders, many London men of the 47th and 56th Divisions, fell, killed or wounded, to the right of them, on the way to Martinpuich, and Eaucourt l'Abbaye and Flers, from High Wood and Longueval, and Bazentin.
It was rather surprising that the number of cases were so small, for amongst the men was a large draft of Yeomanry having their first experience of the trenches. Meanwhile a new camp at Lower Wood, about a mile behind Martinpuich, had been started, and we inhabited and improved it during the next four days.
For example, we were shown last week a pair of striking snapshots taken above Martinpuich, before and after bombardment. The Before one pictured a neat little village in compact perspective of squares, rectangles, and triangles. The Aftermath pictured a tangled heap of sprawling chaos, as little like a village as is the usual popular novel like literature.
The line marked on their map from the Bapaume Road to the east of the sugar factory as their objective was theirs. In front of them was the village of Courcelette and in front of the British line linked up on their right was Martinpuich. Spades now! Dig as hard as you have charged in order to hold the freshly won position, with "there" become "here" and the Ridge at your backs!
The sunshine rebounded from the top of their wings, and against the discoloured earth they looked like fireflies. A mile or so behind the then front lines were the twin villages of Courcelette and Martinpuich, divided only by the road. Already they were badly battered, though, unlike Pozières, they still deserved the title of village.
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