It was by no means certain that the enemy would not open out with another onslaught on this front, for he was making desperate efforts to reach Amiens further south, and a break through here would make his task much easier. With the assistance of Chinese labour lines of trenches had been dug, and they were speedily wired in by batches of Royal Engineers and Labour Corps. The first system to be defended if the front line collapsed was called the Purple Line. Behind that was the Red Line, while further back still was the Brown Line, protecting Doullens. It was here during these troubled days that the historic meeting took place between Sir Douglas Haig and Marshal Foch, when the latter took over supreme command. As well as regaining lost energy the 42nd division had to be responsible for a portion of the Red Line in the event of a break through, so at various times parties of officers and N.C.O's. made trips to it for reconnaisance purposes, and schemes were evolved for the possible disposition of companies and the siting of L.G. posts, etc., under the leadership of Major Higham, now commanding the battalion.
After a week at Louvencourt we moved up into the line again, the division relieving the 37th division in the Hebuterne and Rossignol Wood sector. No one was sorry to get into a fresh part of the line. We felt that we did not wish to see the Bucquoy-Ablainzevelle road again! For some time now the 42nd had been one of the divisions of the IV. Corps, commanded by Lt.-Gen. Harper, the one-time commander of the famous 51st (Highland Territorial) division, and as such we were to remain until Germany was defeated. We were in goodly company, for the other divisions were the New Zealanders, the 37th and eventually the 5th, but we were never put to shame at any time. Indeed, the spirit of "Go one better" was always amplified by deeds, and by none more assiduously than the 7th Manchesters.
Hebuterne and the immediate district was the "happy hunting ground" of the division until the final grand hunt in August. As in 1914 the village stood on the high-water mark of the advancing tide of Huns. In their last effort they had captured it but the Australians had driven them out again. If a visit be paid to this part of France the reason for its importance to either side will be seen at once, for it stands near the northern end of a commanding ridge which runs north and south, and from which good observation is obtained for many miles in all directions. This was the ridge over which the Huns had swarmed in March, to be thrown back again, after a severe dispute, by the newly arrived Anzacs, so that the present position was good for us but poor for "Jerry." Hebuterne was the culminating point of a very pronounced Hun salient, and our line swept round in a noticeable curve from the corner of Bucquoy to Beaumont Hamel, almost touching the south-eastern edge of the village. Looking north was the famous ground where Gommecourt had once stood. In 1917 the French had decided that Gommecourt should be preserved in its battle-scarred state as a national monument, for the blood of many brave soldiers had there been shed during the fierce Somme fighting of 1916. Notices were put up, huge white boards with black printing in French and English, enjoining no one to interfere with the trenches and wire, etc., but to leave things just as they were. Oh, the irony of it! Here was the Hun again pounding, pounding with fierce wrath and insistent desire to smash his way through. Those self-same notices were shell-shattered, while in his zeal to destroy the dug-outs which he knew so well in Gommecourt, for he had made them, he dropped, in one morning, more than thirty 15-inch shells in the village. To the right of Gommecourt could be seen the naked stumps of Rossignol Wood, a beautiful name reminiscent of delightful summer evenings. But the song of the nightingale was now gone, and the only tunes to be heard were the deadly rat-tat-tat of Boche machine guns and the fierce hissing of our shrapnel bullets through the decayed undergrowth, the time for this devil's music being regularly thundered out by the crash, crash, of heavy howitzers.