As we neared the front line in the left sector--we were now in Bay Avenue--water and mud became still more plentiful, the ground even more bare, and the general sense of desolation even more pronounced. Suddenly we found ourselves in the front line--a sand-bag breastwork, looking old and weather-beaten, with a duck-walk running along it and a sudden descent of two or three feet to a continuous chain of pools of green and stagnant water. A few sand-bag "bivvies" among the traverses, an occasional roof consisting of a single sheet of corrugated iron--here was "home" for the next eight days. Whichever way you looked along the line you saw the same endless bays and traverses, most of them more or less fallen in; the same pools of evil-smelling water; the same stretches of shell-churned ground; the same old litter of tins and débris. If you turned your gaze backwards towards Wye Farm, in search of something less desolate and inhuman, the scene was hardly more inspiring. Overgrown bushes, stunted willows and mud, ill concealed by discoloured grass, were all that met the eye; and the landscape was only broken by the irregular lines of trenches which showed up in the distance like Brobdingnagian mole runs. We visited the scene of the raiding party's exit from the line, and the smears of recent blood on the duck-boards and the pieces of field-dressing lying about similarly stained told their own story. We also heard how our advance party, who left us in Woking, had been initiated during the last few days into the mysteries of trench warfare. We then returned to Battalion Headquarters, where all the details of trench routine were gone into and explained with great clearness and precision. No one could have been more kind and helpful than those New Zealanders, from the Commanding Officer downwards. They knew we were totally inexperienced, and they did everything possible to instruct us in the short time available. Their name became a synonym in the battalion for gallantry and courtesy, both of which qualities we had full opportunity of estimating. As the weather was misty, and showed every sign of remaining so, it was arranged that the relief should take place on the next day (February 22nd) in daylight, commencing at 7.30 a.m. In the afternoon Company Commanders and selected N.C.Os. arrived to visit their areas, and their New Zealand opposite numbers proved as helpful and instructive as the Battalion Headquarters staff had been.