The Sunken Road was only held by our men as an advanced post and "jumping off" (or attacking) point. Our line lay behind it on a higher part of the spur, which does not decline gradually into the valley road, but breaks off in a steep bank cut by our soldiers into a flight of chalk steps. These steps gave to all this part of the line the name of Jacob's Ladder. From the top of Jacob's Ladder there is a good view of the valley road running down into Beaumont Hamel. To the right there is a big steep knoll of green hill bulking up to the south of the valley, and very well fenced with enemy wire. All the land to the right or south of Jacob's Ladder is this big green hill, which is very steep, irregular, and broken with banks, and so ill-adapted for trenching that we were forced to make our line further from the enemy than is usual on the front. The front trenches here are nearly five hundred yards apart. As far as the hill-top the enemy line has a great advantage of position. To reach it our men had to cross the open and ascend a slope which gave neither dead ground nor cover to front or flank. Low down the hill, running parallel with the road, is a little lynchet, topped by a few old hawthorn bushes. All this bit of the old front line was the scene of a most gallant attack by our men on the 1st of July. Those who care may see it in the official cinematograph films of the Battle of the Somme. [Illustration: Troops moving to the Front in the Dust of the Summer Fighting] Right at the top of the hill there is a dark enclosure of wood, orchard, and plantation, with several fairly well preserved red-brick buildings in it. This is the plateau-village of Auchonvillers. On the slopes below it, a couple of hundred yards behind Jacob's Ladder, there is a little round clump of trees. Both village and clump make conspicuous landmarks. The clump was once the famous English machine-gun post of the Bowery, from which our men could shoot down the valley into Beaumont Hamel. The English line goes up the big green hill, in trenches and saps of reddish clay, to the plateau or tableland at the top. Right up on the top, well behind our front line and close to one of our communication trenches, there is a good big hawthorn bush, in which a magpie has built her nest. This bush, which is strangely beautiful in the spring, has given to the plateau the name of the Hawthorn Ridge.