British troops in action before St. Quentin. Towards midday they
arrived--M. Gustave Babin, of _L'Illustration_, Paris--and M. Eugene
Tardeau, of the _Echo de Paris_. I presented these gentlemen to the
General, who kindly extended every facility to them.

I took them up to the observation post from which they could look down
on St. Quentin.

"It will be a great moment for me," said M. Babin, "to obtain the first
impression of the Allied entry in the town."

For myself the day was quite uneventful, beyond obtaining extra scenes
of the preparatory work of our artillery. The heavy bombardment was
continuing with unabated fury, the horizon was black with the smoke of
bursting high explosives, huge masses of shrapnel were showering their
leaden messengers of death upon the enemy. Towards evening the weather
changed for the worse. It began with a biting cold sleet, which quickly
turned into snow.

That night we slept in an old greenhouse which was open to the four
winds of heaven. The cold was intense. I rolled myself up tight in my
bag and drew my waterproof ground-sheet well over my body. It was a
good job I did so for the snow was blowing in through the many fissures
and cracks and settling upon me like fallen leaves in autumn.

The heavy shelling continued throughout the night. Several Bosche shells
came unpleasantly near, shaking my rickety shelter in an alarming
manner.

The next day the weather continued vile and the operations were
indefinitely postponed. Therefore there was nothing further to do but to
return to H.Q.

St. Quentin, for the present, was to me a blank, although I had
continued for some time preparing all the scenes leading up to its
capture.

The weather was changing, the ground was drying. Our line, just north of
the town, was being pushed further forward. Holon-Selency,
Francilly-Selency, Fayet and Villerete had fallen to our victorious
troops, but the main attack was not yet.

To obtain scenes of our men actually in the front line trenches facing
the town, I made my way through Savy and Savy Wood, in which not a
single tree was left standing by the Bosche. Through the wood I
carefully worked forward by keeping well under cover of a slight rise in
the ground. I met a battalion commander on the way who kindly directed
me to the best path to take.

"But be careful and keep your head down. Hun snipers are very active and
he is putting shrapnel over pretty frequently. Although it doesn't hurt