Battalions, brigades, and divisions went into the fight, were worn down in more or in less time, precisely as the chances of the ground either screened or exposed them for a while to the fire-blasts. Sometimes it was only a matter of hours before what had been a brigade ceased to exist--had soaked horribly into the ground. The wastage was brought down and back across the shell-holes as well as might be, losses were made good, and with a half, two thirds, or three quarters, new drafts, the original Battalion climbed back to its task. While some development behind the next fold of land was in progress or brought to a standstill, they would be concerned only with the life-and-death geography of the few hundred yards immediately about them, or those few score yards over which profitable advances could be made. A day, even an hour, later, the use and value of their own hollow or ridge might be altogether abolished. What had been a hardly won foothold would become the very pivot of a central attack, or subside into a sheltered haven of refuge, as the next dominating ridge or lap of the large-boned French landscape was cleared. Equally suddenly, even while the men thanked God for their respite, German batteries or a suddenly pushed-forth chain of German machine-guns would pound or spray their shelter into exposed torment once more.
As one philosopher of that unearthly epoch put it some time afterwards: “We was like fleas in a blanket, ye’ll understand, seein’ no more than the next nearest wrinkle. But Jerry and our Generals, ye’ll understand, they kept us hoppin’.”
“Our Generals,” who, it may be presumed, knew all the wrinkles of the blanket, shifted the Brigade on the 16th August opposite Serre on the far left of the line, which was not destined to be pierced till the next year. It was a fleeting transfer to another Army Corps; their own, the Fourteenth, under Lord Cavan, having joined the Fourth Army. They took over from the Somerset L.I. (61st Brigade) a set of trenches which, after their experiences in the Salient, struck them as dry, deep and good, but odd and unhomely. They had been French, were from six to nine feet deep, paved in places with stone, which our men had never seen in trenches before, and revetted with strange French stickwork. The dug-outs, too, were not of their standard patterns. The front line was badly battered, but reliefs could be effected in broad daylight without casualties. The activities and comforting presence of our aeroplanes impressed them also as a great contrast to Ypres, where, naturally, our troops for the moment held only a watching-brief and every machine that could be spared had gone to the Somme. The dead of the opening battles lay thick about the place. The Irish buried two hundred of a division that had passed that way, five weeks or so before, and salved, with amazement at its plenty, the wreckage of their equipment. “There’s the world and all out there, Sorr,” said a man returning from his work. “The very world an’ all! Machine-guns and”--his voice dropping in sheer awe--“rum-jars!” They were unmolested, save by a few minenwerfers. Undertaker’s work does not hearten any troops, and they were glad to get back to hutments in the untouched woods behind Authie, near their old “poultry-show.” During these days 2nd Lieutenants J. N. Ward and T. Gibson joined from home, the latter going to the first-line transport and Captain L. R. Hargreaves took over No. 2 Company on joining from home on the 20th.