, many of
them badly wounded; some of them, I'm afraid, destined as tenants of the
little cemetery near by.

The awful nightmare continued. Men were coming and going. Reserves were
being rushed forward; more bombs were being sent up. The Bosche
artillery quietened down a bit, but only, as I found out immediately
afterwards, to allow their bombers to attack. I could see the flash of
hundreds of bombs, each one possibly tearing the life out of some of our
brave boys. Nothing in the world could have withstood such a
concentrated artillery fire as the Germans put upon that five hundred
yards of ground. It was torn and torn again, riven to shreds. It was
like the vomiting of a volcano, a mass of earth soddened with the blood
of the heroes who had tried to hold it.

The Germans came on, bombing their way across to what was left of our
trench. They dug themselves in. Then with a whirl and a crash, our guns
spoke again. Our boys, who had been waiting like dogs on a leash, sprang
to the attack. Briton met Bosche. The battle swayed first this way then
that. Our men drove the Germans out twice during the night, and held on
to a section commanding the flank of the original position. Towards four
o'clock the fighting ceased. Daylight was breaking. The wounded were
still being passed to the rear.

I stopped and spoke to an officer. "How have you got on?" I asked.

"We occupy the left flank trench, and command the position. But, what a
fight; it was worse than Loos." Then suddenly, "What are _you_ doing
here?"

"I am taking kinema pictures!" I said.

The look of amazement on his face was eloquent of his thoughts.

"Doing _what_?" he asked.

"I am taking kinema pictures," I repeated.

"Well I'm damned," were his exact words. "I never thought you fellows
existed. I've always thought war pictures were fakes, but--well--now I
know different," and giving me a hearty shake of the hand he went on his
way.

Time was now drawing near for my work to begin. Taking the camera to
the selected point in the front line, which, luckily, was just on the
left of the fighting area, I took my bearings by the aid of a compass.
Fixing up a tripod in such close quarters was very difficult. I
stretched an empty sandbag on a piece of wire, cut a hole in it and hung
it on the front of the camera in such a position that the lens projected
through the hole. The sandbag stretched far enough on either side to
shelter my hands, especially the right one,