ased. The deadly silence was uncanny in the
extreme; in fact I seemed to fear it more than the bombardment. It
seemed to me too quiet to be healthy. What was Bosche up to? There must
be some reason for it. I took cover in a shallow trench at the roadside.
Along the bottom were lying several dead Bosches, and a short distance
away fragments of human remains were strewn around.

The place was desolate in the extreme. The village was absolutely
non-existent. There was not a vestige of buildings remaining, with one
exception, and that was a place called by the Germans "Gibraltar," a
reinforced concrete emplacement he had used for machine-guns. The few
trees that had survived the terrible blasting were just stumps, no more.

Fritz's sudden silence seemed uncanny, but taking advantage of his
spell of inactivity I hastily rigged up the camera and began exposing.
In a few minutes I had taken sufficient, and packing up I hurried down
the road as fast as I could.

I reached the chalk-pit safely and then, cutting across direct to the
gun pits, I took up my original position and awaited Fritz's good
pleasure to send a few more crump to provide me with scenes. But not a
shell came over.

Before leaving this section I thought I would film Contalmaison, a name
immortalised by such fighting as has rarely been equalled even in this
great war. To get there it was necessary to go to "Dead Man's Corner."
The road was pitted with shell-holes, and dead horses lay about on both
sides. Bosche was still uncannily quiet. I was beginning to think I
should just manage to get my scenes before he interfered with me. But
no! Either he had finished his lunch or had some more ammunition, for he
started again. One came over and burst in the village in front of me,
with a noise like the crashing of ten thousand bottles. I took shelter
behind a smashed-up limber, and waited to see where the next would fall.
It burst a little further away. Good enough, I thought. Here goes before
he alters his range.

Jumping up I ran and scrambled on to the ruins of a house, and took some
fine panoramic views of the village, first from one position then from
another. Some of the scenes included a few of our men in possession.
Altogether a most interesting series, including as it did both Pozieres
and Contalmaison. It was the first time they had been filmed since their
capture.

At that moment I heard another crump coming over. It seemed to be
unpleasantly near, so