r the success of the war, throw down their tools, they
are only called strikers.

The crime is the same; the punishment should be the same.

CHAPTER X

ARRIVAL ON THE SOMME

FEEDING THE GUNS. SEPTIMUS D'ARCY ARRIVES. A CURIOUS KIT

Late that evening orders came to move into the trenches on the far
slope of the Valley of Death. Trenches here, trenches there, trenches
everywhere, while we groped around without knowing where the trenches
led to, or the position of the German lines.

We spent an anxious night, the uncertainty of our position and mystery
of those massed guns, thundering their wrath into the darkness of the
night, caused a tension which defied any desire to sleep.

What was the meaning of it all? What was happening over yonder, where
the iron of England's anger was falling, bursting, tearing, killing?
What was happening over there? Would we receive a similar reply? The
signs were significant: we were at last on the Somme; we were in for
it with a vengeance.

The next morning broke bright and fair, and found us still awake with
eyes peering anxiously through the rising mist. We were evidently not
in the front line, but were there on the Somme; and that sea of
shell-holes which everywhere surrounded us told its own story of what
had been, and what was yet to be.

At about 11 o'clock all eyes were turned towards High Wood, on the
crest of the hill to the left. A burst of shells from the enemy's guns
told that a target had been found. We watched, and presently we could
faintly see a column slowly moving along the road through the wood.

Three ammunition wagons moved slowly towards our guns. Crash! A 5.9
fell in front of the leading horses; a cloud of dense, black smoke
arose and blotted the picture from view. The smoke cleared, and the
little column was still moving slowly forward, undisturbed and
indifferent. Crash! Crash! Two more shells burst by the side of the
second wagon; the smoke cleared; the horses were startled and giving
trouble, but once again the defiant little column moved slowly
forward, indifferent and undismayed.

We continued to watch the plucky little column, now obscured by the
black smoke of the bursting shells, then again emerging from the
smoke, heedless of danger.

Those men were human. How could they stand it with such calm and
determined indifference? The answer was the guns: the guns must be
fed; and British grit and discipline were unconquerable. The army is
won