The front of the La Bassée Sector ran north and south for nearly 5000 yards, and was intersected in the centre by the Béthune—La Bassée Canal, at a point roughly three kilometres west of the town of La Bassée. The left, or Givenchy, sub-sector contained the ruins of Givenchy, once a mining village, now an important tactical point on a spur of the Aubers ridge. The right sub-sector, which included the canal and the village of Cuinchy to the south, was known as the Canal Sector. The opposing lines had been practically stationary since 1915, and here could be traced the history of trench warfare from its early and crude forms to its latest developments, as the story of the earth’s surface is revealed in strata and fossils to the geologist. The trenches and landmarks bore names familiar to very many battalions and units of the B.E.F., as, for instance, _Windy Corner_, _Harley Street_, _Orchard Keep_, _Moat Keep_, _Poppy and Marie Redoubts_, _Death or Glory Sap_, _Red Dragon Crater_, _Mill Sap_, and many others. In the reserve line—part of the “Village Line” which ran as far south as Lens—stood Cambrin, Pont Fixe, Le Plantin, Festubert, and Cailloux, all in ruins, though in Cambrin, within 2000 yards of the front line, a few civilians still clung to their homes and strove to subsist by providing light lunches and selling eggs, chocolates, and oranges to the troops. This sector was popularly known as “Egg and Chips Front.” D.H.Q. was at Locon. One infantry brigade held each sub-sector and the third was in Divisional Reserve, with a system of reliefs described by an appreciative officer as “beautiful and soothing in its clockwork regularity.” The villages of Beuvry, Le Preol, Essars, Le Quesnoy, Gorre, and Oblinghem provided some of the best billets the Division experienced in France or Belgium, and the comparatively large town of Béthune was near enough to offer its considerable attractions to the troops in reserve. Béthune and its inhabitants had always enjoyed an admirable reputation among officers and men of the B.E.F., and when the Division first entered this area the town was not seriously damaged. At a later date, however, it suffered so severely from aircraft bombing and a long-range gun that many of its inhabitants were forced to leave; and a company of the 8th Manchesters on its way from the front to its billets in the vicinity of the town was surprised by a low-flying plane, which dropped a bomb that killed or wounded nearly half the company. By the end of the year 1917 Béthune was like a city of the dead. [Illustration: LA BASSÉE CANAL, LOOKING TOWARDS PONT FIXE.] [Illustration: HARLEY STREET AND WINDY CORNER.] [Illustration: LA BASSÉE SECTOR. THE BRICK STACKS.] [Illustration: LA BASSÉE SECTOR. SITE OF GIVENCHY CHURCH.] [Illustration: GIVENCHY. “J” SAP.] [Illustration: GIVENCHY. MOAT FARM.]