31st May 2013, The Somme

The site of the Mill at Pozières offers little, as it is too neatly preened. I once saw a beautiful old photograph of it with the wind blowing through long, mid-summer grass, an ash tree on the corner of the site, the shell craters on the low mound a mystery waiting to be discovered, but no longer. Neatness and order have, sadly, triumphed. So back down to Ovillers-la-Boisselle. I want to photograph 'Mash Valley', the scene of the massacre of the 34th Division on 1st July, but it too offers little today, and many of the new houses beside the Roman Road grate against the aesthetic sensibilities. Maybe another time. The bare, recently drilled earth beyond the deeply mined 'Glory Hole' crater field at the foot of the village, where the opposing lines almost touched each other, reveals the evidence of more filled-in craters in the form of large, circular white chalk marks, but I fail to properly consider the composition, and an opportunity is blighted. The Glory Hole itself is largely concealed behind fences and rough scrub, private and invisible to the passer-by. I don't go to Lochnagar this time, having visited in 2003. The crater iself is too photographed already. Mametz Wood, and David Jones, calls.

Before I get there I find Quandrangle Wood and the scene of Siegfried Sassoon's one-man foray into the German held Wood Trench in front of Mametz Wood. Quadrangle Copse itself has a lure, the curious intruder concealed by the dank morning and May's lush vegetation. There is a hut just inside the entrance, which startles, but it is empty, and quiet. The centre of the copse conceals a deep collapsed working, or a series of large craters. The former is perhaps the more likely, for the craters are huge, and there was no mining here, but I can find no account which mentions it. The thick weeds in the crater grab at your feet, and damp leaves smite your face. It feels airless, the skin prickles, and I am glad to be back out on the road.

Quadrangle Wood, looking towards the British advance. David Jones's 'gentle slopes' are visible to the right of the wood. I am standing roughly on the line of Quadrangle Trench, which ran down to the left in the direction of Mametz Wood.