In April, 1916, we were relieved of our work in Flanders, and ordered to move down to trenches some thirty miles farther south, to the chalk country of Artois. The new trenches were near Neuville-St.-Vaast, and about a half-mile south of the famous Vimy Ridge. The British at that time had just taken over another portion of the French line extending down as far as PÉronne, in the Somme district and the infantry holding our part of the line at Neuville-St.-Vaast had relieved the French infantry only a few weeks previously. We were to relieve the French Territorial sappers. Mighty glad they must have been to hand this troublesome sector over to us, but no evidence of this was to be seen in their characteristic casual and matter-of-fact attitude. We moved down in the usual way. The A.S.C. (Army Service Corps) furnished us with thirteen buses to take our men down, while the officers rode down in advance on motorcycles. I was detailed to take charge of the convoy of buses, and accompanied them on a motorcycle. Our fellows were all in high spirits at the prospects of a change, and the stops were many. The natural consequence was that I had my troubles in keeping the men from patronizing too liberally the many inviting estaminets on the road down.

After having spent several months in so-called rest-billets pretty close to the line and shelled regularly, we were all immensely pleased to find that our new rest-camp was to be situated in a very pretty little village named Berles, near Aubigny, and some eight miles from the firing-line. This camp, of course, was only intended as a rest-camp, and billets for only a quarter to a third of the company were necessary, as this represented the number of men who would be on rest at any one time. We soon made acquaintance with our advance billets, and these were close enough, being only a mile behind. Captain M. had preceded us to Berles as the billeting officer. The officer who talks French best is usually the man for this job, and he always does very well for himself when it comes to picking his own billet, having first choice. Incidentally it may be remarked the man who talks French well always has the edge on the other fellows. The usual old-fashioned and picturesque farm-house furnished us with a room for a mess. We looked out from this mess-room on to the inevitable midden which is a feature of all the French farm-houses in this part of the world. The buildings of these farms are always arranged in the form of a square, with the house on one side, and barns, stables, and granaries on the other three sides all enclosing a yard in the middle of which is invariably a very filthy pool. The manure from the stables is brought out and dumped into this yard and in addition everything else in the way of refuse from the house. Needless to say, the atmosphere around these middens on warm days in summer might have been healthy, but was certainly not pleasant.

We had been sent down to take over the underground mining at these trenches to meet what the Third Army termed "an urgent situation." It was well described. The fact of the matter was that the Germans had by extraordinary underground activity succeeded in forcing the French and British to abandon the majority of their advanced trenches in this neighborhood. No Man's Land looked like the view one gets of a full moon as seen through very strong telescopes with its numerous craters and shell-holes.

The aeroplane photograph shows the state of affairs when we reached the trenches. The pock-marked appearance of the ground will be noticed. All the smaller marks are shell-craters and the larger or real craters those formed by mine explosions. Note also how the Germans and British have run saps or trenches out to them from their front lines. The Germans had blown mine after mine, sometimes as often as 2 or 3 a day on less than a 500-yard front, until they had succeeded in making life decidedly unpleasant for the poor infantrymen holding these trenches. Whole platoons of men at a time had been engulfed in these terrific mine explosions, which were being blown at all hours, but principally at night. Things were so bad that, when we arrived, the most advanced trenches were practically abandoned, only being held by a few isolated groups of bombing sentries and Lewis gunners for a few hours at a time. The later aeroplane pictures show the state of affairs some six weeks later. By the beginning of July approximately twenty more craters had been fired by the Germans and ourselves in No Man's Land and the trenches adjacent. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain an aeroplane picture taken at that time. There was an observation-line ahead of the firing-trench; most of our mine-entrances started from this most advanced line of trenches. On some occasions we were left alone underground without any one on top, that is, without any infantry. When this happened we usually posted our own sentries. One night when it happened that no sentries had been posted in one of our trenches, the Huns came over on a short and sharp raid, and actually occupied for a few minutes the trench above us under which we were working, while we continued our work quite placidly below, not knowing what was happening on top. The Jocks, bombing their way through from the firing-line, very soon took care of them, though some Huns got away in the dark.

With the exception of my experience during the Somme offensive, I have never seen anywhere more corpses in the trenches than here. They were so numerous that one could not cut out a new trench thirty feet in length without unearthing as many bodies. All of them were six months old, and the summer was coming on. The barbed wire in No Man's Land was not a pleasant sight. Bodies were tangled up with it everywhere, and the wire in many places was supporting bodies, or at least skeletons, still covered with their tattered uniforms. This was a gruesome sight to us when working at night on top—ghastly and pitiful. During the day the air was heavy with the sickening smell. The only way we could improve matters at all was by smoking hard. Quicklime was provided, but not used in sufficient quantities. I always felt sorry for the few men I ran across who did not smoke. When we first walked up the trenches we would notice what were apparently boots sticking out of the sides of the trenches. On closer examination we would find that there were feet still in them. One particularly callous old Scotch sergeant of ours who used to lose himself frequently adopted the habit of chalking direction signs on these boots.

Some of the dugouts were pretty bad too; we were not inclined to be too particular, but on occasions when it was just a little too strong we would organize search-parties to discover and remove the usual source of the trouble.

Enemy aeroplanes were very active in this sector, and the Boche fliers evidently had sharp eyes when it came to detecting new dugout or mine construction. It was necessary to camouflage all our spoil very carefully, otherwise we could always rely on these spots being shelled or trench-mortared quickly. There was much flying on moonlight nights. Searchlights back of our lines would pick out the enemy planes, and the "archies" at once get very busy. Usually we did not pay much attention to enemy planes, but they had a way of intruding themselves at times which was decidedly disagreeable. They would sometimes rudely interrupt our games of cards in the mess back at our billets. One night they dropped five bombs in quick succession which landed within twenty yards of our Nissen hut, the usual corrugated-iron structure. It was not often that we could afford the time and material for dugouts at our back camps, and as a result the shelling and aeroplane bombing generally was watched with much interest. The flying men at the front are not "fair-weather" aviators. They go up under almost all conditions of weather. Some wonderful flying is seen. All the loops, etc., seem of small account in comparison with the daring nose dives, side slips, and falls of both British and enemy planes. Most men get the flying fever. I applied for transfer to the flying corps in May, 1916, and was passed by the examining officer in the field, but fortunately, perhaps, for myself, my application was turned down by the corps, engineer officers being somewhat scarce at the time.

Souvenirs of German bombs, trench mortars, etc., were much in demand, and some of us were foolish enough to take the detonators and charges out of "dud" T.M.'s, etc. I did this on several occasions, but not without taking every precaution possible to insure against accidents. "Dud" shells are those which have for some reason not exploded because of defective fuse or some mistake in firing. I brought back with me several duds which happened to fall near me and did not explode. Some of the infantry seemed to think that it was a favorite pastime of the engineers to extract the detonators from these duds, and we would often take them out for them, but were at last obliged in self-defense to abandon such a dangerous vocation. I would not handle a dud shell now for a million dollars.

The difficulties of obtaining baths in these trenches at that time were many. The poor infantry would be occupying the front and reserve trenches for a month or six weeks at a time, and it was impossible for them to obtain a bath during this whole time. This hurt more than anything else. We were a little more fortunate in the engineers, and could average a kind of bath about once a week when lucky. Our efforts to get a decent bath with about a half-pint of water were most amusing. Water was very scarce. The rats and beetles in the trenches were large and active and did not add to our pleasure. At night the rats come into their own, and when times were quiet we would pull off some interesting rat hunts and incidentally get some good revolver practice.

Our dugouts in the Vimy Ridge were fairly safe, and after we had been below for a short time, and especially when there was a heavy trench-mortar "strafe" directed in the trenches above, it was not much fun coming out of them. Your heart would be in your mouth as you came up the steps and emerged into the blackness of the trench above. After a few minutes in the trench, however, one would get used to it.

We fell heir to a number of French shafts and galleries which had been driven in for a short distance; some of these we proceeded to continue, and others to abandon. Nearly all the German galleries and tunnels were in the chalk at depths varying from 80 to 150 feet below the surface. There was a top-soil of sandy clay averaging in thickness from 1 to 30 feet, covering this hard chalk. In military mining in chalk and clay it is important to remember that the work by extreme care can be conducted practically noiselessly in clay, but it is almost impossible to work without noise in chalk, especially in the chalk of this district, which contained so many flints. We used the usual rough hand methods in tunnelling here; namely, the pick and shovel. The ring of the pick in striking a piece of flint could be heard by the ear for a distance of 80 feet, and with the listening-instruments we used to hear a pick up to about 200 feet.

Our best defensive plan here was to start in with a strong offensive, so we proceeded to put in a number of tunnels in the sandy clay top-soil. This we did on account of the fact that we could work in the clay at about double the speed of that in chalk and, in addition, work noiselessly. It was a risky game on account of the fact that the Huns were nearly always below us in their chalk galleries, and if they heard our work could quite easily fire their mines and rid themselves of the hated British.

This district around Neuville-St.-Vaast and La Targette has witnessed some very hard fighting, and even the last terrific battle of the Vimy Ridge was neither the first nor the worst of the battles on this sector. Some six months before my company reached the scene, in September, 1915, the French and Germans had met in some terrible struggles. Nothing was left of the villages of Neuville-St.-Vaast and La Targette but a heap of crumbling bricks here and there. The casualties were ghastly. The total casualties for the attacks in this region were estimated at about 150,000. The French had succeeded in capturing the German lines—but at a terrible cost. The trenches were so numerous and mazelike that the district is named "The Labyrinth." It was certainly a puzzle to get in and out. We would enter the communication-trenches at a point near the crossroads at Aux-Rietz, where our billets were situated on the main Arras-Souchez road, and walk up the communicating-trenches as hard as we could go for three-quarters of an hour before we reached the front line. The trenches retained the names left them by the French: Boyau Zivy, Boyau Bentata, etc. It took us several days to get our bearings here. It is seldom a pleasant business taking over new trenches. Just about the time you get hopelessly lost, Fritz thinks it's the correct time to start a bad trench-mortar strafe, and your efforts to find any sort of cover always prove unavailing—no dugouts or shelters are to be seen for miles around.

The French officers whom we met were of the typical polite and considerate order, and very hospitable. Instead of the usual British "whiskey and soda," we would be invited to a drink of real "eau de vie," or French brandy, when we visited them in their shelters and dugouts. Another man and I were entertained the second day after our arrival by the French engineers at luncheon at their mess at Marouille. Seven courses were served to us, with suitable wines. The supply of crockery was limited, and we had to use our own jack-knives, but these trifles did not interfere with my appreciation of the best meal I had had since leaving California. We afterward found out that their cook had formerly been the head chef of the well-known Holborn Restaurant in London.

I took in the first shift to work on our new mines. On our way up I met Colonel A., the controller of mines for the Third Army coming out. He gave me the disquieting information, just received from the French, that I might expect Mine No. 806 to go up that night. "Seven o'clock is the Hun's favorite time for firing," was his last remark. It was then about six-thirty, and as we were forced to pass this mine in order to place our men near by, we thought we would hurry along. As a matter of fact, Fritz did not blow this mine until some two months later, though his gallery was not more than ten to fifteen feet away from ours all this time. We did our best to make the Germans fire by rigging up a dummy pick and operating it regularly and using other devices. The enemy would often keep us on the anxious seat with tunnels like this.

When we started our operations, his tunnels in many places were right underneath us, and these he would work intermittently, firing some and holding others to fire later when he thought he could take us by surprise and do the most damage. It was always a great relief when he finally exploded these delayed mines, and after investigating matters we would immediately hike along to a near-by dugout and celebrate. This state of affairs continued for about three weeks, at the end of which time we had pretty well figured out, by listening carefully everywhere, just where his tunnels were.

We had been welcomed with open arms by the British infantry. The poor fellows were having a bad time, especially in the advanced posts. The old Fifty-first (Highland) Division were then holding the trenches there. Very few of these gallant Scotchmen, or "Jocks," as they are called, are alive to-day, for after leaving us they went into the Somme offensive, and there lost at least half their number, and the other half fought in later battles with the same percentage of casualties. But this is only too common. These Scotchmen were great fighters, and liked nothing better than meeting the Hun on anything like equal terms, and would positively revel in any attempt of the enemy to raid our lines. The latter would only occasionally try this, however, and never outstayed their welcome. All these Jocks were veterans and very handy with the universal Mills hand-bomb. Thousands of these bombs were furnished, and could be found in haversacks placed in bomb-boxes and located everywhere around the front lines (see illustration). In the trenches these bombs are always carried with detonators in them, and the only operation necessary is to withdraw a cotter-pin which holds the spring-release down. Directly the pin is taken out, the spring is released unless the bomb is held correctly, that is, with your fingers around it. The bomb explodes five seconds after the spring is released, so this little precaution of holding down the spring-release with your fingers must be observed. It sometimes happens that men forget to pull out these cotter-pins. One night one of our husky Jocks, in the excitement incident to a small raid on the enemy, forgot to extract the pin, though I was told he threw the bomb with such force, and good aim, that it completely split the skull of the poor Boche it was aimed at.

It was a different matter, however, when it came to mines. They would fight anything they could see, but were admittedly not pleased with the prospect of mines going up under their feet every night. The poor fellows who had to hold the most advanced posts, mostly bombing sentries and Lewis gunners, did not at all relish the alarming regularity with which the Germans blew their big mines. No wonder they were glad to see us. The poor infantryman gets enough hell on the surface and from the air without adding troubles from below. Ask any troops who have held trenches where mining was going on. Nothing will induce them to go below in our mines. As one lad said to me once: "Blime, I'd rather go over the top any day—why a V.C. wouldn't tempt me to go down that blooming 'ole."