When I got clear of the Tank, the firing ceased. I mentally vowed that, for the future, temporarily disabled Tanks near the firing-line would not interest me, unless I was sure they were under good cover. I continued my journey to the farm, but kept well below the top of the ridge. At one section, to save my dying a sailor's death, duck-boards had been placed over the mud to facilitate easier travelling. It made me feel like going on for ever, after ploughing for hours through mud the consistency of treacle. Eventually I arrived on the high ground near Mouquet. Many of our field-gun batteries had taken up their position near by: they had turned old shell-holes into gun-pits--occasionally a burst of firing rang out, and Bosche was doing his level best to find them with his 5.9 crump. Here I managed to obtain several very interesting scenes. The farm, as a farm, did not exist; a mass of jumbled-up brickwork here and there suggested that once upon a time, say 100 B.C., it might have been. In due time I reached the place. A machine-gun company were in possession, and I found an officer, who offered to show me over the Bosche's underground fortress. I entered a dug-out entrance, the usual type, and switching on my electric torch, proceeded with uncertain steps down into the bowels of the earth. The steps were thick with mud and water; water also was dripping through all the crevices in the roof, and the offensive smell of dead bodies reached me. "Have you cleaned this place out?" I called to my friend in front. "Yes," he said. His voice sounded very hollow in this noisome, cavernous shaft. And it was cold--heavens how cold! Ugh! "There was one gallery section; where it leads to we cannot find out, but it was blown in by us and evidently quite a few Bosches with it; anyway, we are not going to disturb it. There is a possibility of the whole gallery collapsing about our ears." "We are at the bottom now; be careful, turn sharp to the left." "Why this place must be at least forty feet deep." "Yes, about that. This gallery runs along to more exits and a veritable rabbit warren of living compartments. See these bullet-holes in the side here," pointing to the wooden planks lining the gallery. "When our men entered the other end the Bosche here had a machine-gun fixed up and so they played it upon anybody who came near; lit up only by the gun flashes it must have been a ghastly sight. It must have been the scene of devilish fighting judging by the number of bullet-holes all over the place. There are plenty of bloodstains about, somebody caught it pretty badly." I followed my guide until eventually we came to a recessed compartment; it was illuminated by two German candles stuck in bottles, and a rough wooden table with two chairs, evidently looted from the farm when the Bosche arrived. We made our exit from another shaft and came out at a spot about one hundred yards from the place we had entered.