72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada - Electric Scotland

SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS OF CANADA
Brigade rehearsed a proposed attack on Pys, a village
nestling at the foot of Bapaume Ridge. This attack, which
was to be of a very comprehensive character, involving a
large number of troops, was later countermanded, owing
to certain tactical developments on the flanks. A large
working party was sent to Aveluy, a railhead north of
Albert, for the purpose of loading trucks. It was during
this working party that the men had their first experience
of long-range shelling, one or two casualties being in
curred.
With the taking of Desire trench by the 38th Ca
nadian Infantry Battalion, the 72nd was once more pushed
forward to fulfil that most difficult of tasks, to hold and
properly consolidate a freshly-occupied position. To com
plicate matters, reports on the situation, as is almost in
evitable in such a case, conflicted. Only after the most
strenuous reconnaissances on the part of the officers and
N. C. O. s was the Battalion able to get anywhere at all.
As usual, mud and rain terribly hampered movement, and
at length, after nine solid hours of trudging, halting and
moving on again, through one of the darkest of nights,
the Battalion arrived at Desire trench. It sounds a simple
matter to go from one point to another, even in the dark,
but to take a Battalion, at night, over recently-captured
ground where all landmarks have been obliterated, and
over country which no one is sure of, is a task of immense
difficulty. Of course, the Battalion was furnished with
guides, but as has been sagely remarked, there are only
two kinds of guides those who do not know the way and
say so at once, and those who are equally ignorant but
leave you to find it out! Unfortunately the only guides
the Battalion had on that night were of the latter descrip
tion. And so it happened, that after a night of sliding,
stumbling and wading through the worst kind of bogs
in all degrees of consistency or the lack of it, the 72nd
arrived at Desire trench and settled down to a six-day
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