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Behind an occasional wisp of smoke showed that a train was making its way between Achiet and Miraumont, whose supply depots were frequently visited by our bombarding squadrons. A mile to the south the hamlet of Serre, twice fruitlessly attacked next year, topped a barren and shell-blown ridge.
However this stay at Courcelles was invaluable later on, for it gave me a general idea of the lie of the land on the enemy side, when we were pressed back to Gommecourt and Colincamps. We left Courcelles about October 18, and entrained at Miraumont station.
Though further north throughout this very bitter weather fighting was incessant round Miraumont and the approaches of Bapaume, here inactivity prevailed, and the month cost the Battalion no more than nine casualties. There was also little sickness, and strength and fitness were well maintained. March came in with a return of frost and snow, but the front was gradually waking into life.
The British made important gains on both banks of the Ancre when in the morning of February 17, 1917, they attacked German positions opposite the villages of Miraumont and Petit Miraumont on a front of about two miles. North of the river a commanding German position on high ground north of Baillescourt Farm was carried on a front of about 1,000 yards.
The Germans concentrated heavy shell fire on Irles, and showered high explosives on Miraumont and upon other places on the front from which they had withdrawn. The British were now less than a mile from Bapaume, in the rear of which the German guns on railway mountings were firing incessantly on British positions.
We went over a lot of the neighbouring ground, and I was able to see how the Germans were forced out of St. Pierre Divion, Miraumont, and Beaumont Hamel. I little thought as I rode home that night through Bucquoy that I should in little more than five months' time be commanding a company in the front line in a muddy ditch outside Bucquoy.
To the left, a mile or so back, in what was known as the Mouquin Farm region, the British troops pushed forward in the direction of Pys and Miraumont, and all that part of Regina Trench over which there had been much stiff fighting was held by them. German troops had recovered a small portion of the front-line trenches they had lost to the north of Les Boeufs.
When we left the line at Cherisy we had a good idea what our destination was to be. But first of all we moved a short way back in the direction of Miraumont. The 149th Infantry Brigade was quartered at Courcelles-le-Comte, a shattered village in the area vacated by the Germans after the battle on the Somme.
On the 8th sixteen British aeroplanes bombed a German stores depot at Miraumont, in the Somme district, and the aerodrome at Hervilly. The attack was carried out in a high westerly wind, which made flying difficult. All machines returned safely after inflicting much damage on both objectives.
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