92
The Ypres Times.
As time was passing, alas, only too quickly, it was not long before we were on the
road again, this time direct for Bapaume.
I recollect viewing Bapaume through field-glasses in October, 1916, whilst under fire
in a shell-hole, after we had come down from that infernal Ypres Salient. We had
already had our baptism of Somme warfare in July, but three months later we found
ourselves again trudging the Somme valleys. Even before we left Montauban behind,
one of our number fell out curiously, he shot himself dead in Happy Valley, not twenty
yards from where I lay asleep in a dug-out. After that we vent on," past Bernafav
and Trönes Woods, Guillemont, Ginchy, to Lesboeufs and Morval. At that time, Bapaume
was in German hands, and seemed a long way off to us in muddy trenches below the ridge.
In fact, the British did not occupy Bapaume until five months later, and on withdrawing
the Germans systematically and totally destroyed the townall the houses were then
standing like skeletons in a maze of ruins.
To-day, Bapaume is again Bapaume, but not so the Hotel-de-Ville, which used to
stand in the Place Eaidherbe. War can erase a town, and Peace can restore it, .but
re-construction cannot bring back to ravaged Bapaume the atmosphere of its old 15th,
16th and 17th century buildings. For all that, it has much to be proud of, whereas in
1918 it was entirely in ruins, to-day it is taking a worthy place among other re-constructed
villages and towns of Franceand that is saying much!
On our way back along the Bapaume-Albert road, we branched off in the direction
of the village of Martinpuich, and then along the fringe of High Wood, which still bears
a haunted appearance in parts. Several memorials can be seen commemorating the
gallantry of troops who were engaged in those actions. I think I am correct in stating
that such woods as High, BernafaV, Trönes, and Peuze have not yet been thoroughly
explored or searched. One only has to try and penetrate into one of these dense labyrinths
to-day to realise what a formidable task it would be. The clearing-up of the wreckage
of war in such thick undergrowth and utter desolation would without doubt add to the
already distressing total of graves of unknown warriors.
To write of the other villages we passed, or noticed in the distance, such as Contal-
maison, Bazentin-le-Grand, Bazentin-le-Petit, Fricourt, is but to repeat what I have
already said that these former death-traps and fortresses, one and all, are almost back
to normal existence, and re-construction is proceeding rapidly on sound modern lines.
On another day, we visited the scene of the fierce fighting on the Ancre of ten years
ago. The road from Bertrancourt is as peaceful as ever, and Mailly-Maillet is now- practically
whole. Even the ironmonger at the end of the village, whose shop received a supple
mentary load of metal from the German guns, is smiling again. I caught a glimpse of the
house, now re-built, in the cellar of which I spent a few anxious nights during those
early days of July, 1916.
The road beyond Mailly-Maillet, where the light railway crosses, brought back
poignant memories of going up to the line in the Beaumont-Hamel sector. The old
silent windmill on the left of the road I recognised, also further on the military cemeterv
just below Colincamps, where many of our brave fellows found their last resting-place in
those days. The remains of the sv.crerie, that unhealthy spot, sent thrills through me as
I recollected the nitmber of shells that went screaming overhead by our reserve lines,
depositing themselves with a deadly thud on or near the British gun positions in rear.
The battlefield on each side of the bleak Serre road is a wild tangle of every conceivable
relic of war-days, and the severity of the fighting is well illustrated left and right by
