Short as was the time for preparations, an elaborate deceptive scheme was planned and carried out, to make it seem that we intended to fight in Flanders. Canadians were put into the line on the Kemmel front, where in due course the enemy identified them. Ostentatious Headquarters and Casualty Clearing Stations were conspicuously disposed about the area. Throughout the 1st Army sector our wireless stations hummed with messages about the concentration of troops, and arrangements were made to make it seem that a great assembling of Tanks was taking place near St. Pol. Here, indeed, Tanks elaborately trained with infantry on fine days--days, that is to say, on which the enemy’s long-distance reconnaissance and photographic aeroplanes were likely to be at work behind our lines. The ruse was perfectly successful and--as we found out afterwards--the news of our “great projected attack in Flanders” soon spread, and by the time we were ready to strike on the Somme the enemy was momentarily expecting to be attacked in force in the north. III Meanwhile, hectic days and still more hectic nights were being passed near Amiens. The reader is to imagine that elaborate preparations such as were described as the preliminaries to Cambrai and which took a month to carry out, had now to be executed in a little over a week. Reconnaissance had to be carried out, details of plans and liaison arranged, and dumps had to be made, the last on an unprecedentedly large scale, so great a number of Tanks never having gone into action together before. In the centre (the Australian sector) certain units in the 5th Brigade had been newly equipped with Mark V. star infantry-carrying Tanks. No one was very familiar with these machines, and so, in addition to other preparations, such units had infantry-carrying to practise with their Australians. One circumstance greatly added to the fraternal feeling of the 5th Brigade towards their familiar battle partners. As soon as the final conference was ended, General Monash laid down the principle that on no consideration should any alteration be allowed in the plans as then approved. It was therefore possible for all the Tank units to work out the details of their schemes in perfect confidence. The battlefield lay on either bank of the river Somme, which ran to the north of the area of attack, and as far as Péronne, almost at right angles to the lines of the two armies. South of it, a number of gullies, roughly parallel to the battle front, ran down to the river from high ground which formed the watershed between the Somme and the small river Luce. Two of these steep gullies, the Cérisy Valley, and another which ran from Morcourt almost to Harbonnières, were to be great features in the battle, forming as they did admirable cover for the concealment of batteries or for the assembling of troops for a counter-attack. The following notes on the Luce were given to the author by Major Hotblack:--