The transformation of a line of battle into an efficient “back of the Army” requires, it seems, an amazing amount of human energy, contrivance, and endurance.  And what we see now is, of course, a second or third stage.  First of all there is the “clearing up” of the actual battlefield.  For this the work of the men now at work here—­R.E.’s and Labour battalions—­is too skilled and too valuable.  It is done by fatigues and burying parties from the battalions in occupation of each captured section.  The dead are buried; the poor human fragments that remain are covered with chlorate of lime; equipments of all kinds, the litter of the battlefield, are brought back to the salvage dumps, there to be sorted and sent back to the bases for repairs.

Then—­or simultaneously—­begins the work of the Engineers and the Labour men.  Enough ground has to be levelled and shell-holes filled up for the driving through of new roads and railways, and the provision of places where tents, huts, dumps, etc., are to stand.  Roughly speaking, I see, as I look round me, that a great deal of this work is here already far advanced.  There are hundreds of men, carts, and horses at work on the roads, and everywhere one sees the signs of new railway lines, either of the ordinary breadth, or of the narrow gauges needed for the advanced carriage of food and ammunition.  Here also is a great encampment of Nissen huts; there fresh preparations for a food or an ammunition dump.

With one pair of eyes one can only see a fraction of what is in truth going on.  But the whole effect is one of vast and increasing industry, of an intensity of determined effort, which thrills the mind hardly less than the thought of the battle-line itself.  “Yes, war is work,” writes an officer who went through the Somme fighting, “much more than it is fighting.  This is one of the surprises that the New Army soldiers find out here.”  Yet for the hope of the fighting moment men will go cheerfully through any drudgery, in the long days before and after; and when the fighting comes, will bear themselves to the wonder of the world.

On we move, slowly, towards Fricourt, the shattered remnants of the Mametz wood upon our left.  More graveyards, carefully tended; spaces of peace amid the universal movement.  And always, on the southern horizon, those clear lines of British trenches, whence sprang on July 1st, 1916, the irresistible attack on Montauban and Mametz.  Suddenly, over the desolate ground to the west, we see a man hovering in mid-air, descending on a parachute from a captive balloon that seems to have suffered mishap.  The small wavering object comes slowly down; we cannot see the landing; but it is probably a safe one.

Then we are on the main Albert road again, and after some rapid miles I find myself kindly welcomed by one of the most famous leaders of the war.  There, in a small room, which has surely seen work of the first importance to our victories on the Somme, a great General discusses the situation and the future with that same sober and reasoned confidence I have found everywhere among the representatives of our Higher Command.  “Are we approaching victory?  Yes; but it is too soon to use the great word itself.  Everything is going well; but the enemy is still very strong.  This year will decide it; but may not end it.”