I therefore made my way down the half flooded and shell holed road, past Le Bargue a distance of about four kilometres until I arrived at Yarra bank and there reported to battalion headquarters. At headquarters, the other guides and myself were marched by Lt. Bain of ‘A’ company, overland via Factory Corner and then down Hexham Road, past Le Sars Cutting and into the village of Le Sars and there reported to Brigade headquarters for further instructions. After half an hours wait at Brigade head-quarters, which was constantly shelled all day long with 5.9 shells, we set off again down William Alley until we arrived at Martinpinch wood, where the artillery men were working hard in order to shift their big guns further forward.

Then we turned off sharply to the right until we came to a line of disused trenches containing splinter-proof dugouts called 26th Avenue. Here, each guide, under the supervision of Lt. Bain selected a portion of trench which was allotted to his own particular company. Having selected our companies “billets” we set off again and returned by the same route to Yarra bank where we sat down, had a meal and awaited the arrival of our companies from the front line.

At about 11 pm my company came along and I reported to Capt. Hooky as the company guide. The company then filed down the track led by myself, following a slightly different and easier route of which I was acquainted. Instead of leading the company through the heavy mud and slush of Hexham Road, we followed the duck board tracks past “Coughdrop” trench and down Glissade Walk and then followed a trench tram line to Martinpinch wood. Arriving at our billets at 26th Avenue at 2 am where the company went into occupation of the splinter proof dugouts. During the day, I had walked over 22 miles, carrying a load, over the mud and slush and having had no sleep for the two previous night and I was just about exhausted, and threw myself down in my dug out and slept for eight hours without waking.

The Germans were now slowly retreating in the direction of Bapaume, being gradually forced back by our advanced guards at the rate of a mile per day, and were about seven miles distant from where we were resting in 26th Avenue. This meant that all the ammunition dumps had to be moved forward as fast as it was possible in order to keep the advancing troops supplied, so that for the next three days our battalion was kept hard at work in loading and pushing trolley loads of ammunition, etc. along the trench tram lines as far as the “chalkpit” on the left of Le Sars. We were still well within range of the German guns and on arriving back at our dugouts one evening, after being absent all day, we found several of our little homes had been hit by shells. We did not like having to set to and fix them up again, but were glad we were not present when the shells fell.

On another occasion, a British unit erected some tents by the side of the Bapaume road nearby in order to provide shelter for a labour battalion. They were hardly erected when the Germans espied them and commenced shelling them with such success that within an hour, hardly a tent stood intact.

After three days on fatigue at 26th Avenue, we moved on another three kilometres to the Chalk Pit on the left of Le Sars and occupied some dugouts there. It was now 10th March, 1917 and the weather was still raining, the ground being just as much a bog as during the past six months, which greatly hindered the Army in their efforts to get through the broken ground in pursuit of the Huns, who were still retreating slowly and methodically in the direction of Bapaume.

For five days, we remained at the Chalk Pits on the left of Le Sars performing the usual hard labour of fatigue work and obtaining what rest we could in the meantime. During the first day we carried the contents of a dump of trench mortars and S.A.A. from Dead Mule Corner near Martinpinch to the Butte de Warlencourt. Next day, we were engaged in filling in the shell holes on Bapaume Road in the neighbourhood of Ligny and Malt trench. The third and fourth days we spent in salvaging material from the trenches around our camping ground and in carrying shovels and picks to the 19th Battalion who were occupying the support line at Grevillers on the left of Bapaume.

During this period of five days, the German retreat was more rapid and guns with a range of nine miles were out of range on the third day and had to be moved forward five miles. The German method of retreat was to hold a rough line during the day time with a rearguard of machine gunners and cavalry and retreat two or three miles during the darkness of the night, so that the duty of the British was to keep advancing as he retreated day by day, harrying the Huns with repeated assaults on their rearguards and harassing them by artillery fire from the 4.5’s and 18 pounders as their transport and columns of troops moved along their roads.

The Germans impeded our progress as much as possible, by blowing huge mine craters in the intersection of the roads, felling trees across the roads and in rigging up booby traps of all kinds in abandoned houses and dugouts, etc. Knowing our men to be ardent souvenir hunters, he would rig up a trap, with a bomb attached to a Prussian Helmet or a trip wire attached to two bombs across a path, or a bayonet or steel helmet would be attached to a trench mortar, and so on. All of which, when moved would be the means of exploding the bombs, thus causing numerous casualties until the troops became educated enough to leave such things alone.

Another favourite trap he used was the delayed action bomb or mine which would be exploded perhaps days or weeks after being set. For this kind of “booby” trap, he used a special automatic detonator composed of a steel wire passing through an acid and attached to a striker over a detonator. The acid would eat through the wire after a few days, thus releasing the striker, which exploded the detonator, causing the explosion of the mine or bomb. These traps were very numerous and were placed in wells or cellars of buildings or in any other place where troops were likely to congregate and were the most successful in causing casualties amongst the troops.

All the villages in the neighbourhood were absolutely shattered to bits, being nothing but a heap of bricks and timber which covered the roads through the villages. All these roads had to be cleared to allow the artillery and supply waggons to pass through, whilst the shell holes in the road were filled with the broken bricks from the shattered houses. The engineers and pioneers, aided by the infantry were feverishly engaged in every direction in this kind of work and in rebuilding the railway lines and tram tracks which were relaid with marvellous rapidity and by the time the Huns had retreated four kilometres behind Bapaume a light railway was completed as far as Ligny on the Bapaume road only three kilometres from Bapaume.