Many a man has told me that that drink of coffee saved his life when he was quite used up.
In Contalmaison itself, there had once been a very fine chateau.

It, like the rest of the village, survived only as a heap of bricks and rubbish, but the cellars, which the Germans had used as a dressing station, were very large and from them branched off deep dugouts lined with planed boards and lit by electric light.
The road which turned to the left led down to a waste of weary ground in a wide valley where many different units were stationed in dugouts and holes in the ground.

Towards the Pozieres road there was a famous chalk pit.

In the hillside were large dugouts, used by battalions when out of the line.

There was also a light railway, and many huts and shacks of various kinds.