The weather was now breaking up. Cold winds and rain continually swept over the whole Somme district, invariably accompanied by thick mists. I wanted to obtain a film showing the fearful mud conditions, which we were working hard and fighting in and under. And such mud! You could not put the depth in inches. Nothing so ordinary; it was feet deep. I have known relief battalions take six hours to reach their allotted position in the front line, when, in the dry season, the same journey could be accomplished in an hour; and the energy expended in wading through such a morass can be imagined. Many times I have got stuck in the clayey slime well above my knees and have required the assistance of two, and sometimes three men to help me out. To turn oneself into a lump of mud, all one had to do was to walk down to the front line; you would undoubtedly be taken for a part of the parapet by the time you arrived. I asked a Tommy once what he thought of it. "Sir," he replied, "there ain't no blooming word to describe it!" And I think he was right. On one journey, when filming the carrying of munitions by mule-back--as that was the only method by which our advanced field-guns could be supplied--while they were being loaded at a dump near ---- Wood, the mud was well above the mules' knees, and, in another instance, it was actually touching their bellies. In such conditions our men were fighting and winning battles, and not once did I hear of a single instance where it affected the morale of the men. We cursed and swore about it; who wouldn't? It retarded our progress; we wallowed in it, we had to struggle through miles of it nearly up to our knees; we slept in it or tried to; we ate in it, it even got unavoidably mixed up with our food; and sometimes we drank it. And we tolerated it all, month after month. If it was bad for us, we knew it was far worse for the Bosche, for not only had he to live under these conditions, but he was subjected to our hellish bombardment continually without rest or respite. Thus it was I filmed Mouquet Farm and other scenes in the neighbourhood. I went to Pozières and then struck across country. On my way I passed a Tank which, for the time being, was _hors de combat_. It naturally aroused my interest. I closely inspected it, both inside and out, and, while I stood regarding it, two whizz-bangs came over in quick succession, bursting about thirty feet away. The fact immediately occurred to me that the Tank was under observation by the Bosche and he, knowing the attraction it would have for enquiring natures, kept a gun continually trained upon it. I had just got behind the body of the thing when another shell dropped close by. I did not stop to judge the exact distance. I cursed the mud because it did not allow me to run fast enough, but really I ought to have blessed it. The fact that it was so muddy caused the shell to sink more deeply into the ground before exploding, its effective radius being also more confined.