As noted in the previous blog, the New Zealand Field Artillery had taken over new positions in the line at Ypres at the end of last year (1917). It was winter. There was much cleaning up to do, as the New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914-18 says in 'Wintering in the Salient':
Many of the gun positions were in an indescribable condition; the pits were water-logged and innocent of approaches or decent platforms, and were littered about with empty charge cases, and odd piles of ammunition which seemed on the point of sinking out of sight in the mud. Too much could not be expected in an area where a prolonged period of heavy fighting had been followed by persistently bad weather; but improvements were possible, and steps were at once taken to have them effected. Pits were drained, cleaned up, and provided with weather-proof ammunition racks and stable platforms, and splinter-proof sleeping shelters were built for the crews. Before the hard weather came and bound the surface of the earth in its iron grip, nearly all the ammunition lying about the positions had been cleaned up, and most of the charge cases salved; .... All this was achieved, not in a day or a week, but after long and patient toil during the short daylight hours, and subject to the interruptions of enemy shelling. An immense amount of salving was done by the Division during these months, and the value of the material and ammunition collected from all parts of the sector ran into very big figures. Every waggon or ration cart that visited the forward areas returned with a load of material of some description, and every man in formed parties marching down from the line carried some small thing back to the "dump," where, in striking letters, was displayed a notice which queried of the passer-by what he had salved that day.
....
Platforms for the guns were constructed first, then command posts, shelter for the crews, ammunition pits, and, finally, some sort of overhead cover for the guns. ... The positions were being constructed on country which had been the scene of desperate fighting, and which was then but a wilderness of shell holes, half filled with water. It was heavy, tedious work, and often as the men dug they found grim reminders of the fighting that had ebbed and flowed on these slopes, in the unburied dead who had gradually sunk into the soft ground or had been half buried by the bursting shells.
