72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada - waughfamily.ca

BAPTISM OF FIRE.sion of mingled feelings and recognitions, a slight varietyin the routine to which the Seaforths were now becomingaccustomed.Another phase that will be remembered about these earlydays at the Somme is connected with the working partiesthat went out each night, in weather the reverse of cheering,to engage in the necessary but uninviting work of diggingand repairing trenches and other works. It was a case offour to six miles there and four to six miles back, the interval between being filled with exhaustive labour with the pickand shovel. There was not the excitement of a charge, nordid the music of the pipes cast a glamour over a job thatwas about as cheerful as grave digging. Among the teststo which the loyalty and endurance of the men were put,these working parties must certainly be allowed their place.To gain an idea of the difficulties of "carrying on" inthat wilderness of shell-churned countryside in the Sommearea in general, and in particularin that stretch of desolation astride the Albert-Bapaume road, one must realizeone or two special considerations. The country betweenAlbert and Bapaume consists of a series of long, lowridges running approximately N. W. and S. E. Over theseridges runs at right angles the straight ribbon .of thebefore-mentioned main road. These ridges terminate inthe largest of them all, the Bapaume Ridge, on which theGerman plan of defence in this area was based. The bitter fighting which surged over the crests of allthese ridgesin turn, combined with the bad weather, had reduced theground into a quagmire through which any progress, except by the road, was almost impossible. Bear in mindthat this main road led into the heart of the British defence in this area, and it will be readily understood thatit became the perpetual target of the Boche guns.In October, when the 72nd Battalion made its debutinto the Somme country, the enemy held the line of Reginatrench, that battered slash in the earth to the north27