way-shells that blow motor-lorries into matchboard and scrap iron and kill the men in charge of them. The bombardment during this period was the prelude to an offensive, the results of which I will not attempt to write. They are now ancient history, for what is news to-day is history to-morrow, so suddenly do events sometimes occur in this war. Suffice it to add that British troops took close on 20,000 prisoners and an appropriate number of guns in a month, besides capturing large tracts of land and many fortified positions, including the Vimy Ridge, to mention only one, which the enemy, at any rate, had thought to be impregnable. That part of the line towards which we were working was held by Anzacs. The Australian Army is a democratic one. Officers go through the ranks first, and all ranks are thus more or less on a footing of familiarity, the officer invariably addressing a man as "Son." There are many stories of them. One, I think, got to _Punch_, of the Staff Officer who remarked, "This morning I was saluted by an Anzac. It has been a great day for me." Every day General Birdwood is to be seen in his car going up to the forward positions. Our motor-lorries were also employed on salvage. This also is an interesting job. Thousands of men are dismantling old dug-outs, collecting R.E. stores and equipment—in fact, every kind of material imaginable, from live shells to dead bodies. The salved material so collected is loaded on to horse wagons and driven to the roadside, where loads are transferred to lorries, thence taken to railhead dumps, piled up, and sorted. Eventually it is put on train and mostly reaches the Base, some of it being sent further up to the front. All equipment that is repairable at the Base workshops is reissued later to the troops; the remainder, and scrap metal, sold by weight. By this means such places as Beaumont-Hamel and Serre are gradually being cleared. Corpses, when recoverable, are taken in horse-drawn wagons to the nearest military cemetery. Here they are, if possible, identified by an officer of the Graves Registration Committee, and then given a Christian burial, British and German alike, by a padre who is always there for the purpose. No sooner is the ground cleared than its owners suddenly reappear and proceed to search for the money that they hid before their departure. Alas! I fear they seldom find it! The farmers begin to till the soil, so that land which a few months before was the scene of bloody fighting is gradually ploughed up, and not a sound is to be heard except the ploughman’s cries in the stillness, urging on his horses, and away in the distance the never-ending thunder of the guns. The inhabitants are allowed to return and granted a _permis de séjour_ if they are _cultivateurs_. When harvest-time comes they will be provided with reaping and thrashing machines by the British Army.