[Illustration: _PLATE LXV._ CLÉRY. _Cléry lies a little north of Péronne and below the great bend of the Somme. The photograph gives some idea of the difficulties which we had to encounter in getting an army across the river at Brie, and which the Australians had to meet, close to Cléry, in the memorable crossing on the 31st of August, 1918, after which they were able the next day to take Mont St. Quentin and enter Péronne._] [Illustration: _PLATE LXVI._ THE CHÂTEAU OF BRIE. _At Brie the road from Amiens crosses the Somme, continuing on to the east for St. Quentin, and turning north to Péronne._ _It was here that the trials were made--on the Somme--in September, 1918, of the various appliances used two days later in the audacious crossing of the deep water forming a part of the Hindenburg Line at the St. Quentin Canal, which proved so splendidly successful._] [Illustration: _PLATE LXVII._ ON THE AMIENS-ALBERT ROAD. _At a little village (Lahoussoye), beyond Pont Noyelles on the road to Albert, stands, or stood, this dilapidated barn, carrying the scrawl written by some cheerful "Tommy"--"Pessimists shot on sight."_] [Illustration: _PLATE LXVIII._ ALBERT ON EVACUATION. _An official photograph of one of the main entries to the town just after we had regained it in August, 1918. This photograph, and also Plate LXIX, may well be compared with Plates LXXIX and LXXXVIII, as showing the original naked devastation by contrast with the state of places after the sappers had been at work, and the inhabitants had begun to return._] VIII.--ALBERT AND THE ANCRE (PLATES 67 TO 73.) Half a dozen miles from Amiens on the road to Albert one crosses the valley of a little stream at Pont Noyelles--an untouched valley, beautiful with tall trees and green meadows like a bit of Middlesex. The road climbs the combe on the eastern bank, and a little farther on crosses the narrow space "that just divides the desert from the sown." Onwards on the high ground from this point all greenness and beauty have disappeared, every tree has gone, and at one bound is reached the "desert" which covers thousands of square miles to east and north and south. Close to the point of change it was cheering to come across the inscription (Plate 67), doubtless scrawled by some plucky "Tommy" in the bad spring days of 1918, "Pessimists shot on sight." One hopes that the cheerful artist got through safely; it was just his spirit that gave the army that final victory which they believed in as strongly in our worst hours as at any other time.