A clump of small fir and cypress trees stood up dark on the hill at the western end of this row, and behind the trees was a line of green hill topped with the ruins of a windmill. The ruins, now gone, were the end of Pozieres village, the dark trees grew in Pozieres cemetery, and the mill was the famous windmill of Pozieres, which marked the crest that was one of the prizes of the battle. All these things were then clearly to be seen, though in the distance. The main hollow of the valley is not remarkable except that it is crossed by enormous trenches and very steeply hedged by a hill on its eastern flank. This eastern hill which has such a steep side is a spur or finger of chalk thrusting southward from Pozieres, like the ring-finger of the imagined hand. Mash Valley curves round its finger-tip, and just at the spring of the curve the third of the four Albert roads crosses it, and goes up the spur towards Pozieres and Bapaume. The line of the road, which is rather banked up, so as to be a raised way, like so many Roman roads, can be plainly seen, going along the spur, almost to Pozieres. In many places, it makes the eastern skyline to observers down in the valley. Behind our front line in this Mash Valley is the pleasant green Usna Hill, which runs across the hollow and shuts it in to the south. From this hill, seamed right across with our reserve and support trenches, one can look down at the enemy position, which crosses Mash Valley in six great lines all very deep, strong, and dug into for underground shelter. Standing in Mash Valley, at the foot of Ring Finger Spur, just where the Roman Road starts its long rise to Pozieres, one sees a lesser road forking off to the right, towards a village called Contalmaison, a couple of miles away. The fork of the road marks where our old front line ran. The trenches are filled in at this point now, so that the roads may be used, but the place was once an exceedingly hot corner. In the old days, all the space between the two roads at the fork was filled with the village or hamlet of La Boisselle, which, though a tiny place, had once a church and perhaps a hundred inhabitants. The enemy fortified the village till it was an exceedingly strong place. We held a part of the village cemetery. Some of the broken crosses of the graves still show among the chalk here. [Illustration: Photograph showing the Scene of the Successful British Advance at La Boisselle, taken from the British Front Line]