lanes riding the sky. They were swooping
about like lazy hawks, and a bonnie sight they were. I drew a long
breath when I saw them, and turned to my friend Adam.

"Well," I said, "I think we're coming to it, now!"

I meant the front--the real, British front.

Suddenly, at a sharp order from Captain Godfrey, our cars stopped. He
turned around to us, and grinned, very cheerfully.

"Gentlemen," he said, very calmly, "we'll stop here long enough to
put on our steel helmets."

He said it just as he might have said: "Well, here's where we will
stop for tea."

It meant no more than that to him. But for me it meant many things.
It meant that at last I was really to be under fire; that I was going
into danger. I was not really frightened yet; you have to see danger,
and know just what it is, and appreciate exactly its character,
before you can be frightened. But I had imagination enough to know
what that order meant, and to have a queer feeling as I donned the
steel helmet. It was less uncomfortable than I had expected it to
be--lighter, and easier to wear. The British trench helmets are
beautifully made, now; as in every other phase of the war and its
work they represent a constant study for improvement, lightening.

But, even had it not been for the warning that was implied in Captain
Godfrey's order, I should soon have understood that we had come into
a new region. For a long time now the noise of the guns had been
different. Instead of being like distant thunder it was a much nearer
and louder sound. It was a steady, throbbing roar now.

And, at intervals, there came a different sound; a sound more
individual, that stood out from the steady roar. It was as if the air
were being cracked apart by the blow of some giant hammer. I knew
what it was. Aye, I knew. You need no man to tell you what it is--the
explosion of a great shell not so far from you!

Nor was it our ears alone that told us what was going on. Ever and
anon, now, ahead of us, as we looked at the fields, we saw a cloud of
dirt rise up. That was where a shell struck. And in the fields about
us, now, we could see holes, full of water, as a rule, and mounds of
dirt that did not look as if shovels and picks had raised them.

It surprised me to see that the peasants were still at work. I spoke
to Godfrey about that.

"The French peasants don't seem to know what it is to be afraid of
shell-fire," he said. "They go only when we make them. It is the same
on