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no parados (rear wall of a trench). A fire step was in every bay and a sandbag blockhouse used as a dugout.
    Two miles behind our line was the village of Fleurbaix, occupied by civilians. Further back was the town of Sailly-sur-la-Lys. On the right, as one faced the front, was Laventie. Behind the German line was a large and lonely farm, and Fromelles, on a high ridge, where French and Indian cavalry fought in 1914. There was also that rising ground on the right named Sugarloaf. The graves of Englishmen lay everywhere; the dates on the little crosses had almost faded since ‘December, 1914’, ‘February’, ‘May’, ‘October, 1915’. Most of the graves were nameless.
    For several days trench stores, materials for the attack, picks, shovels, light bridges for the creek and scaling ladders were carried through the saps.
    Through Brompton, Exeter, V.C., Pinneys and Mine Avenues they were carried by day – and held high. One could look into the white German communication saps (connecting trenches) meandering over the hillside. The Germans could look into ours.
    The attack was to be made on the 17th. The objective was the German second line. The strategic reason was provided by the presence of a number of Prussian Guard divisions about to entrain from Lille to the Somme, and by the imminence of the important battle of Pozières. The British Army was numerically much weaker than the German, and subterfuges and diversions were necessary.
    All this was known to pseudo-refugees, to spies, in the villages behind. Enemy airmen observed the white and coloured cloths spread in order and in designs in fields, like washing left to dry, according to the custom of the blanchisseuses (washer-women) of Flanders. Fields were ploughed lengthwise, crosswise and diagonally. White horses were depastured in particular fields. Even the genuine inhabitants knew far more about the attack than we. The Germans were in possession of a copy of operation orders before our battalion commanders had received them. And in those days information was not freely communicated to junior officers and the rank and file, as was afterwards the custom.
    On the 17th July, within five minutes of zero time, the attack was countermanded.
    On the 18th, the 59 th and 60 th took over the sector. The 57 th were withdrawn to sleep for the night. We lay in a mill on the outskirts of Sailly, on the Sailly road. Sleep was sweet – for thousands it was their second last. Nevertheless, we neither knew nor cared what the morrow might bring. One accepts the immediate present, in the army. We woke with the birds, reminded of friendly magpies in the morning back in Australia. Here were only twitterings under the eaves, but at least it was a cheerful sound, pleasant on a lazy summer morning when the ripening corn was splashed with poppies, and the clover was pink, and the cornflowers blue under the hedges.
    In Sailly, in the morning, we listened to the chatter in the estaminets (cafés). At the mill, old women and very small girls were selling gingerbread and sweets with cognac in them, sitting on stools, gossiping among themselves.
    At midday we were told.
    Usual preliminaries were gone through. Operation orders (including some indifferent prophesying) were explained, or as much of them as was thought fit. Rations and ammunition were issued.
    At a quarter to two we moved off. Shelling commenced. These were the days of long and casual bombardments. Labourers were hoeing in the mangold fields. Stooping men and women watched us pass, without ceasing their work. It may have been courage, or stolidity, or the numbness of the peasant bound to the soil, or else necessity, that held the sad tenacious people here in such an hour of portent. Their old faces were inscrutable. They tilled the fields on the edge of the flames, under the arching trajectory of shells.
    Bees hummed in the clear and drowsy sunshine. There was little smoke about the cottages, where the creepers were green. The road