From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917

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paume. Achiet-le-Petit and Biefvillers also fell into our hands an

sitting down to tell the history of this day-one of the great days in this war-I feel something of th

rater of La Boisselle to Pozières and beyond, and always I and comrades of mine have glanced sideways and smiled grimly at the milestones which said so many kilometres to Bapaume-and yet a world of strife to go. Now those stones will not stare up at us with irony. There is no longer a point on the road where one has to halt lest one should die. To-day I walked past the milestones-ten, seven, four, three, one-and then into Bapaume, and did not die, though to tell the truth death missed me only a yard or two. I have had many strange and memorable walks in war, but none more wonderful than this, for really it was a strange way this road to Bapaume, with all the tragedy and all the courage of this warfare, and all the ugly spirit of it on every side. I walked through the highway of our greatest battles up from Pozières, past Courcelette, with Martinpuich to the right, past the ruins of Destremont Farm, and into the ruins of Le Sars. Thence the road struck straight towards Bapaume, with the grey pyramid of the Butte de Warlencourt on one side and the frightful turmoil of Warlencourt village on the other. I did not walk alone along this way through the litter of many battles, through its muck and stench and corruption under a fair blue sky, with wisps of white cloud above and the glitter of spring sunshine over all the white leprous landscape of these fields. Australian soldiers were going the same way-towards Bapaume. Some of them wore sprigs of shamrock in their buttonholes, and I remembered it was St. Patrick's Day. Some of them were gunners, and some were pioneers, and some were Generals and high officers, and they had the look of victory upon them and were talking cheerily about the great news of the day. It was in the neighbourhood of a haunted-looking place called "La Coupe-gueule," which means Cut-throat, once I imagine a farmstead or estaminet, that the road became the scene of very recent warfare-a few hours old or a few minutes. One is very quick to read how old

ont from Arra

ut the clock which used to tell us the time miles away when we gazed through telescopes from distant observation-posts, when we still had miles to go on the way to Bapaume. On the right of th

g a big German beer-jug, and showed me his trophy, l

ldgrau

sy to get into B

. "They're putting over shells at

easant, this walk into Bapau

th crashes among the neighbouring houses. They were high explosives, but shrapnel was bursting high, with thunderclaps, which left behind greenish clouds and scattered bullets down. I went through the outer defences of Bapaume, walking with a General who was on his way to the town, and who pointed out the strength of the place. Lord! It was still horribly strong, a

wards into snipers' posts, and stood at the entrance of tunnels and bomb-proof shelters, not going down or touching any of the litter about because of the danger lurking there in dark entries and in innoce

gh Biefvillers, which was now on fire. They had torn up the rails here,

Bah

10

rains was to be only 10 kilome

d "Pferde" (cattle and horses), and everywhere t

1 Ste

ei Off

ith the ground. Others were cut in half, showing all their rooms and landings, and others were gutted in ways familiar to English people after Zeppelin raids. Higher up on the right, as I have said, rows of red-brick villas were burnt out, and smoke was rising in steady volumes from t

erman machine-gunners who held out as the last rear-guard. They fired heavily at our men, but

arty the whole of which was accounted for.

ith the General and another officer a flush of them came yelling at us and burst very close, flinging up the ground only a few yards away. The roadway of "pavé" had been hurled up in huge chumps of stone, and shr

e was alight in the beginning of the world-conflict.... At about half-past nine that night the enemy fired several quick rounds from his fiel