Tuesday 6th July: The 1st/1st Field Company, East Anglian Royal Engineers are at Gorre in northern France, near the town of Béthune: They have taken over the work and supervision of the 2nd Line Defence known as The Village Line, with support points at Cambrin, Pont-Fixe and Windy Corner, Cuinchy (which already existed but had become into a bad state of repair). These were reconstructed and new works made.
Deep dugouts with ferro-concrete walls and roofs were constructed. Walls were loopholed and barricaded with sandbags and second roofs of ferro-concrete to the cellars were made and the cellars where the levels of floors permitted were defended by loopholes for rifles and machine-guns. The houses on the Cambrin-Pont-Fixe Road and the Pont Fixe-Windy Corner Road were also defended in a similar manner.
A simple design of monorail has been erected in Hertford Street Trench for means of transport. The principle points in the design of the rail are that it can be erected in any good communication trench and will carry any load of reasonable dimensions not exceeding 250 lbs at a fast walking speed and little labour. The most usual loads are found to be dixies(1), rations, ammunition, bombs, sandbags and wounded men. A special stretcher was designed for the latter to overcome difficulties of suspension and taking wounded round trenches, which zig-zag in shape rather than linear. A special chair was also designed for the same purpose and can be adjusted to any angle according to the requirements of the wound, This chair can be handled by one man. The increase of speed and reduction of labour in using the rail have been most marked.
Source: WW1/WD3
(1) Mess tins
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