In that area our Second Corps, then the Indian Corps, and lastly our First Corps, with the French troops at times in action with us, had withstood a battering that no other point in the long line from the sea to the Vosges, save possibly the Ypres Salient, had been called upon to stand. The German advance to the westward had reached Vermelles, and there been held. Their farthermost line was in front of the western edge of the town, and close to the main road that led through it. The enemy was in possession of Vermelles for a couple of months. As no English troops had participated in the taking of Vermelles from the Huns, except for the assistance rendered by some of our heavier batteries, we knew little of what had happened in that theatre save that six weeks of sapping, a mad rush after an unprecedented bombardment, and terrific hand-to-hand bayonet fighting in the streets, had resulted in the French occupation of the town on December 7th. Our visit had been arranged for us by Captain Fresson, the French liaison officer attached to 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters. General de Lisle, Colonel Home, Major Hambro, Fresson and I were in the party. Coming out of Bethune, on the Lens road, we passed through Beuvry, then through Shilly-Labourse. In the fields by the roadside were trenches, increasing in frequency along the road from Sailly to Noyelles-lez-Vermelles. When Noyelles was passed, and we could glance across the slightly rolling fields that led eastwards to Vermelles, a mile distant, a little world of trenches met the eye. Some giant, prehistoric mole, crazed with pain and bent on expending his agony on the surface of Mother Earth, might have so ripped the fields. Not rows of trenches, but curved and twisting galleries upon galleries of them. For the first time I began to get an inkling of what real trench warfare--the battles of the pick and shovel--meant. At the headquarters of the French General who was in command of that section of the line a most elaborate _déjeuner_ had been prepared for the party, with the result that it was well into the afternoon before we left the hospitable Frenchman and, in tow of a member of his staff, commenced our tour of sight-seeing. Most buildings thereabouts were shell-scarred; some were burned. No inhabitants were to be seen. The boom of distant shells was ever present, and now and then one burst in sight of us. Detachments of French infantry marched past frequently. We ran to Noyelles, which was full of hard-as-nails-looking French soldiers. There the party alighted, and guided by a young French infantry officer, who had seen the fighting over that ground, walked across the trench-scarred battle-field eastward to Vermelles.