this move or that was really made in a battle: the tales of
soldiers returned from the wars become, in passing from mouth to mouth,
fables of the most wondrous deeds of prowess. But the kinema film never
alters. It does not argue. It depicts.

The terrific cannonade that was proceeding told me that beyond the crest
of the hill an infantry attack was preparing. It was for me a question
of finding both a vantage point and good cover, for shells had already
whizzed screaming overhead and exploded not many yards behind me. There
were the remains of a wall ahead, and I discarded my skis in order to
crawl flat on my stomach to one of the larger remaining fragments, and
when I got behind it I found a most convenient hole, which would allow
me to work my camera without being exposed myself.

In the distance a few scouts, black against the snow, crawled crouching
up the hill.

The attack was beginning.

The snow-covered hill-side became suddenly black with moving figures
sweeping in irregular formation up towards the crest. Big gun and rifle
fire mingled like strophe and antistrophe of an anthem of death. There
was a certain massiveness about the noise that was awful. Yet there was
none of the traditional air of battle about the engagement. There was no
hand to hand fighting, for the opponents were several hundred yards
apart. It was just now and then when one saw a little distant figure
pitch forward and lie still on the snow that one realised there was real
fighting going on, and that it was not manoeuvres.

The gallant French troops swept on up the hill, and I think I was the
only man in all that district who noted the black trail of spent human
life they left behind them.

I raised myself ever so little to glance over the top of my scrap of
sheltering wall, and away across the valley, on the crest of the other
hill, I could see specks which were the Germans. They appeared to be
massing ready for a charge, but the scene was too far away for the
camera to record it with any distinctness.

I therefore swept round again to the French lines, to meet the splendid
sight of the French reserves dashing up over the hill behind me to the
support. Every man seemed animated by the one idea--to take the hill.
There was a swing, an air of irresistibility about them that was
magnificent. But even in the midst of enthusiasm my trained sense told
me that my position must have been visible to some of them, and that it
was time for me t