lived Company Headquarters, the garrison, one or two tunnelling experts and the specialists, stokes mortars, machine gunners and others.  It was a dreadful existence.  The passages were damp and slippery, the walls covered in evil-looking red and yellow spongey fungus, the roof too low to allow one to walk upright, the ventilation practically non existent, the atmosphere, always bad, became in the early mornings intolerable, all combined to ruin the health of those who had to live there.  But not only was one’s health ruined, one’s “nerves” were seriously impaired, and the tunnels had a bad effect on one’s moral.  Knowing we could always slip down a staircase to safety, we lost the art of walking on top, we fancied the dangers of the open air much greater than they really were, in every way we got into bad condition.

The entrance to this tunnel system was at the end of our only communication trench, Stansfield Road, a deep well-gridded trench running all the way from Vermelles.  Battalion Headquarters lived in it, in a small deep dug-out, 200 yards from the tunnel entrance, and at its junction with the only real fire trench, O.B.1, the reserve line.  In this trench the reserve Company lived in a group of dug-outs, near the Dump, called Exeter Castle.  The left Company, with one platoon in Russian Sap and the remainder back in O.B.1, alone had no tunnels.  But after our first few tours, the system was altered, and the support Company, living in tunnels, provided the Russian Sap garrison.  Battalion Headquarters had a private tunnel, part of the mining system, leading to Feetham, which could be used in emergency, but as this was unlit, it was quicker to use the trench.  The main tunnel system was lit, or rather supposed to be lit, with electric light.  This often failed, and produced of course indescribable chaos.

Although the tunnels had all these disadvantages, it is only fair to say that they reduced our casualties enormously, for during the three months we lost only three officers slightly wounded and eighteen men; of these at least four were hit out on patrol.  We also managed to live far more comfortably as regards food than we should otherwise have been able.  Elaborate kitchens were built in Stansfield Road, and hot tea, soup, the inevitable stew, biscuit pudding, and other “luxuries,” were carried up in hot food containers to the most forward posts.  The only difficulty was with Russian Sap, for its approach, Gordon Alley, was in a bad state; but as the garrison was there at night only, they needed nothing more than “midnight tea,” and this could be taken to them over the top.

A light railway ran all the way from Sailly Labourse to Vermelles, and thence to the various forward dumps, ours at Exeter Castle.  Rations and R.E. material were loaded at Sailly, taken by train to the Mansion House Dump at Vermelles, and then by mule-drawn trucks to the front.  The Exeter Dump was lively at times, especially when a machine gunner on Fosse 8 slag heap, popularly known as Ludendorf, was pointing his gun in that direction.  But beyond a mule falling on its back into O.B.1, we had no serious troubles, and got our rations every night with great regularity.