l back upon itself, leaving in its place a
mountain of smoke. From the moment the mine went up my feelings changed.
The crisis was over, and from that second I was cold, cool, and
calculating. I looked upon all that followed from the purely pictorial
point of view, and even felt annoyed if a shell burst outside the range
of my camera. Why couldn't Bosche put that shell a little nearer? It
would make a better picture. And so my thoughts ran on.

The earth was down. I swung my camera round on to our own parapets. The
engineers were swarming over the top, and streaming along the sky-line.
Our guns redoubled their fire. The Germans then started H.E. Shrapnel
began falling in the midst of our advancing men. I continued to turn the
handle of my camera, viewing the whole attack through my view-finder,
first swinging one way and then the other.

Then another signal rang out, and from the trenches immediately in front
of me, our wonderful troops went over the top. What a picture it was!
They went over as one man. I could see while I was exposing, that
numbers were shot down before they reached the top of the parapet;
others just the other side. They went across the ground in swarms, and
marvel upon marvels, still smoking cigarettes. One man actually stopped
in the middle of "No Man's Land" to light up again.

The Germans had by now realised that the great attack had come. Shrapnel
poured into our trenches with the object of keeping our supports from
coming up. They had even got their "crumps" and high-explosive shrapnel
into the middle of our boys before they were half-way across "No Man's
Land." But still they kept on. At that moment my spool ran out. I
hurriedly loaded up again, and putting the first priceless spool in my
case, I gave it to my man in a dug-out to take care of, impressing upon
him that he must not leave it under any circumstances. If anything
unforeseen happened he was to take it back to Headquarters.

I rushed back to my machine again. Shells were exploding quite close to
me. At least I was told so afterwards by an officer. But I was so
occupied with my work that I was quite unconscious of their proximity. I
began filming once more. The first lot of men, or rather the remainder
of them, had disappeared in the haze and smoke, punctured by bursting
shells. What was happening in the German lines I did not know. Other men
were coming up and going over the top. The German machine-gun fire was
not quite so deadly