The proximity of active hostilities was evidenced by (among other things) a number of tanks, both large and small, which waddled up the road near us. But the conditions were very different from those at Passchendaele the previous year. There you saw only an interminable stretch of mud and water, with never a living thing to vary the monotony of the scene except soaked and muddy soldiers. Here, on the contrary, we had fine rolling country, dry and firm, which even a spell of wet weather did not convert into a muddy swamp. Ripe corn stood ready for the cutting, birds sang, and save for the distant rumble of the guns all was peaceful and still. The villages, it is true, were razed to the ground and often half overgrown with grass and weeds--sad reminders of the first Battle of Cambrai; the ground was scarred and pocked with shell-holes, and the ravages of war were only too obvious in many other ways. Yet even in the war zone itself the open, rolling country was always pleasant to the eye, and the ground dry and firm except during actual rain. At 11 p.m. we moved off to another field a few miles away at Mercatel, arriving soon after midnight. What might be described as our "circular tour of France" was now drawing to a close. These night marches, with all the comic incidents connected with night bivouacs, the confusion of settling down or setting off in the profound darkness, which the restless bombing 'planes made imperative, were soon to be but pleasing memories. One march more was to bring us to the Hindenburg Line. At 11.30 a.m. we moved off, and in due course arrived at St. Martin, just in front of the redoubtable Line, and the Commanding Officer proceeded to the place forthwith. Meanwhile the men settled down in shell-holes amid the ruins, while Battalion Headquarters was established deep down in a dug-out under the remains of the church. Walking wounded and German prisoners were much in evidence. After a short delay the battalion moved in for the night into the Hindenburg front line, with all its mass of trenches, wire, and dug-outs--a truly magnificent work, but looking somewhat forlorn now that the tide of war had rolled eastward. At 7 p.m. on August 29th we moved a little farther along the line, which here bent back in an easterly direction. This brought us to a point nearly due east of Fontaine Lez Croisilles, which was some 2,500 yards away and in close vicinity to the other two Brigades of our Division, which were already in action. At 10 a.m. the battalion was ordered to take up its position as Brigade Reserve, the 2/7th and 8th Battalions K.L.R having moved up to form a defensive flank during the attack of the Canadian Division on Upton Wood, which was about a mile and a half west of Fontaine. The companies took up ground positions on the south-west and south-east of Fontaine respectively.