The subsidiary line was marked on the right by a large civilian cemetery, through which the trench passed. It was full of graves with wooden crosses and artificial flowers such as are usually to be found in a French burial-ground. From there to the Battalion Headquarters the trench was traversed, but there was little parados. "Bivvies" of small breadth and height abounded, and there were one or two concrete dug-outs, usually full of water. A ditch, with a railing in front of it, marked the approach to Battalion Headquarters, after which the trench narrowed into two small alley-ways where Gloucester Avenue joined the subsidiary line, and thence ran down steeply to a road from Nouvel Houplines to Quesnoy. Here the tram line crossed the subsidiary line and ran across country to the right company front. The open road was masked by a big screen. At this point the subsidiary line was built on a somewhat higher level, and contained big bays and long traverses, protected in rear by a parados, behind which was a traffic trench, in which a number of "bivvies" had been constructed. Continuing your course, you came to Wessex Avenue, the finest communication trench in the sector, though but little used. The line now became a long, straight trench with a high parapet, with duck-boards along the side of the bank and also at the bottom. Beside the lower track was a green ditch. At the end of this stretch was a bridge across the Panama Canal, which ran back in a south-easterly direction to the support line in the right company sector. In design it was merely a deep drain, but it was duck-boarded and a handy short-cut diagonally across the sector. It was seldom used in daylight, in the hope, which was probably justified, that the enemy would regard it merely as a drain. Durham, Edmeads, and Sussex Avenues all met at this point; and a few yards in the rear stood Cambridge House. The last part of the line was full of "bivvies," and just before the end, Irish Avenue, the left-hand communication trench of the sector, led off to the front line. At the end the ground fell away steeply to some marshland beside the banks of the Lys. The only other means of communication with the front line, except the communication trenches above mentioned and a few overland tracks, was the road which ran from the junction of Wessex Avenue and the subsidiary line to Edmeads Farm. This was only passable at night, but it was an excellent short-cut, though subject to bursts of machine-gun fire and "whizz-bangs."