California Camp, the Normans' jumping off point for their IN and OUT occupation of the trenches and working parties when not in the former, was composed of a collection of tiny huts constructed on similar lines to the Nissen. The attractions peculiar to this obnoxious assortment of pygmy habitations were two: could not lie down straight in them, absolutely impossible to stand up. Circular of roof, mode of entrance was an enforced elegant attitude on hands and knees wherein a decided advantage could be derived by going in lobster-wise—backwards, for there was NOT an ample space in which to turn about.

Jerry artillery had fitful moods of strafing. Days of wild "searching" with a disgusting series of violent heavies bursting in all directions, blowing out candles with the concussion and in the darkness bringing about language-provoking situations that culminated in clumsy searches for matches...light would reveal your watery rice careering smugly about in a boot and half a dozen fags floating sadly in the remnant of your mess tin of tea!

Bitter cold of night increased. Boots, however soft and pliable when taken off, however well oiled, would be frozen hard and stiff in the morning as if cut in steel. To force these essential protections on called for painful, struggling efforts.... The only remedy was to sleep with the boots next the body. Placing beneath a pillow was fatuously inadequate.

They went into the line on a frontage beyond the actual Passchendaele village and on the far side of the ridge looking down on Jerry trenches. Watery mud again everywhere...a further protection of sandbags around the legs was not a success; trench feet became more and more prevalent and the germs of trench fever placed Martel, Robin and a long roll on the casualty list.

Eight days of it, followed by arduous fatigues and working parties in the reserve lines. Trenches upon trenches in relays were with difficulty cut into a spongy soil, having apparently one fixed intention, e.g., to clog on to the spade in gummy lumps. Redoubts were constructed under directions from R.E.'s and a series of strong points run up at brief intervals.

When Jerry decided to come over he would have an ample reception. The weather had developed a finer, milder tone, enabling the occupants of enemy observation balloons to peer down on the mass of men engaged in rapid construction of several reserve lines of defence. At times the fit would take him to play on these exposed areas with his artillery, raining on the troops a brief fierce barrage, blowing men, horses and waggons to fragments in all directions, and playing mad havoc amongst partially-completed earthworks...but the work went on.

Another eight days in! Night raids, patrols—casualties. Jerry came over once in the early morning—he went back!

A party of R.E.'s moving up from the south-ard brought with them tidings of what had occurred near St. Quentin.

"Jerry started 'is little game. Came over in thousands," The speaker was overwhelmed with eager inquiries.

"Anythin' doin'?", "Did we wash 'im out?", "Wot 'appened?"

"One at a time. Smashed in our line on a fifty mile front."

"WOT!" shouted in chorus.

"Yus. St. Quentin fallen. Fifth Army fair smashed up."

"Good Gawd!"

"Ten miles into our lines."

"Oh, 'ell!"

"Took thirty thousand prisoners—Gawd knows 'ow many guns."

"WOT!"

"Thousands of casualties."

"And 'ave we stopped 'im?"

"No—still fallin' back."

Pessimism, something akin to consternation, found a hold upon the mental outlook of the troops in the sector. They had held an extraordinary unshakeable faith in the might of the Army, in its absolute certainty of holding impregnable what had been theirs from 1916, and upon which all enemy attempts had realised no concrete success.

And now, at one mighty knock-out blow, the Army was in retreat on a fifty mile front!

They glanced back upon Ypres. He would try for it...take it? Day after day the black budget of "falling back", "prisoners", "using up our man-power," put the wind up them to such an extent that they began to curse at their own impotency and helplessness; to fret angrily at a forced comparative inactivity.

Why were they kept up there while "nothing was doing"? Why were they not sent south to give a hand to the lads who were daily fighting a stubborn retreat against avalanches of German reserves?

The Passchendaele sector remained unusually quiet; little strafing occurred from either artillery, with the exception of a sunset entertainment organised daily for the benefit of ration parties and reliefs.

Aeroplanes, after prolonged reconnaissances far into Jerry's territory, returned and the observers reported no movement or massing of enemy troops, guns or transport were taking place on a scale beyond the customary. No advance upon Ypres was at the moment anticipated unless he still farther stretched out an already extended, far-flung battle zone.

The working parties put their backs into the work with every intention of making a line upon which some thousands of Huns would be rendered casualties before it capitulated. Jerry, watching them do it, with ironical humour left them alone as if their labour were in vain, and long before the trenches would be required the British Army would be cut in two. Perhaps!

Fritz adopted a nasty habit in the form of lobbing over from fifteen miles away a new type of heavy shell, apparently under experimental observation. One fell among the Guernsey cookers, tearing a chunk cut of Sergt. Le Lacheur (he had been waiting for a Blighty for months), wounding several and mauling a few into fearsome masses of red flesh.

Grouser—he had not been with the Battalion long—found vent for his feelings. "Ain't got any blarsted sense, them Germans aint. War—it ain't war to smash up the bloomin' cookers...'ow the 'ell does 'e think we'll do about grub now?"

"Complain. Grouser, ole son, to the C.O." (C.O.: Commanding Officer—the colonel.—Draws the best paying winner in the Battalion Stakes and also the softest job). He was let in for a baiting.

"Send Jerry a bar of chocolate in exchange for a new cooker."

"Ask 'em to confer the O.B.E. on the Jerry wot fired the shell."

"You needn't worry about the grub. Grouser—you can live on nuts."

"Plenty of hay with the transport."

"Oh," Grouser turned abruptly, "plenty of hay.... You found yer bloomin' natural fodder, eh! Aye, ye're every bit such a donkey as ye look."

"Look 'ere, wot d'you take me for?"

"Take you for? Wouldn't take you fer a bloomin' gift. We used to have one like you with our organ—'ad it on a chain."

The Ten Hundred prepared after a last night in the line to move back during the first week in April for the long rest upon which their anticipations had been longingly concentrated for weeks.

No Battalion moved more than a few miles behind the sectors owing to the uncertainty of future enemy developments. His line of attack had been lengthened from both original flanks until at the lull in his scheme of offensive a length of over seventy miles had been attained.

He was preparing for a second wild onslaught, again to the far south of Passchendaele...of the result everyone felt a little uncertain. It was obvious that sooner or later he would attempt a headlong rush upon those lines of communication with the Home Country—Channel Ports—so vital a factor in the efficient maintenance of the B.E.F.

The Normans came out. D Company was sent on in the direction of Proven, attained within a kilo of the town and was intercepted by a despatch rider, who carried with him orders for their immediate return. A stir of apprehensive uncertainty spread through the ranks. What had happened? Surely they were not going to be rushed into the line somewhere...they had only just come out.

They turned, encountered the Battalion at Brandhoek. A fleet of lorries was awaiting them.

Something was ON.

A thunderstorm turned its lashing rain upon their unprotected forms, drenched them utterly and damped their spirits. A sense of some indefinable presentiment of future dimmer crept over the mind, that subtle consciousness of approaching death forced its black pessimism upon their thoughts. They watched the heavy grey clouds scuttling overhead, watched the rain dropping from off each man's steel helmet, and gazed across the long desolate stretch of watery earth, tangled debris and shattered cottages.

Shivering with the cold, wet, hungry and weary. An hour before, marching elated in the knowledge of a few days' freedom from the haunting knowledge of Life's uncertainty—now they were in for something they all pregnantly felt would involve them in a slaughter that might place Finis to the Battalion. The Cambrai survivors stared sadly into the closing gloom...they had gone through Rues Vertes—COULD their luck hold twice!

The lorries moved away...the Norman Ten Hundred went out again to hang-on or fall, to uphold the traditions dearly bought by those who had gone over the Divide a few months before.

If they could DO IT then, they could do it NOW.