During the comparative lull towards the end of July the shelling of the Fricourt area became so pronounced that, pending the next general attack, the headquarters of the divisions in line were moved back to Bellevue Farm—between Méaulte and Albert—and the opportunity was at once taken to transfer the Corps Exchange in Fricourt into the dug-outs so vacated. The Armstrong hut had luckily escaped so far, but several shells had pitched within a few yards of it, and the operators deserved great credit for the way they stuck to their duties without the slightest protection through the periodical shellings. A new route was built by 51 Air Line from Bellevue Farm to link up this new position with the main forward route at Vivier Mill, and was calculated on a scale sufficient to meet requirements in the event of the headquarters of the Corps moving to Bellevue Farm when the advance resumed. Throughout the war, but particularly in this earlier period, the difficulties of Signals did not arise exclusively from the terrain and from enemy action, but to a great extent from careless and thoughtless conduct on the part of the other arms. Much damage to lines was done by cross-country traffic at night, largely unavoidable but much also avoidable, if a better understanding of the importance of communication had existed in the non-technical units. When an infantryman found himself in reserve a few thousand yards behind the front line, and lacking a piece of cord to fix up his bivouac, cut a few yards out of a cable which had been strung across the ground in his vicinity, he did not realize that the line so put out of action might well be the observation line of a heavy battery, that the damage he had done in a few seconds might take an over-worked lineman hours to locate and repair, and that meanwhile the battery would be blinded and his comrades in the front line deprived of its instant and effective support. A typical instance occurred on the night of the 3rd July. The group of French 75’s attached to Corps Heavy Artillery had moved suddenly late in the evening to support operations at Mametz Wood next morning. Communication was established through one of the buried trenches by 10 p.m., but an hour later this and other lines in the trench went full earth. At 3 a.m., after tracing the cable inch by inch through a dark night, and tapping in at intervals as he progressed, the exhausted lineman found that a company in support had decided that the cable trench would make a good temporary cook-house, and, of course, had burnt all the twelve pairs of wires in the trench. To the infinite relief of the H.A. Signal Officer, this proved to be the only damage done, and the wires were set going again before dawn and in time for the operations.