on us from the sky above; and just for
two minutes the sheaf of four shells from some particular field battery,
which sent them passing as regularly as a clock about five times a
minute overhead, seemed to lower and burst just above us; and one or
two odd high-explosive bursts--4.2, I should say--crept in close upon us
from the rear, while the parapet gave several ponderous jumps towards us
from the other direction. One would swear that it had shifted inwards a
good inch, though I do not suppose it had. The dazzling orange flashes
and crashes close around us were rather like a bad dream. One could not
resist the reflection that often comes over a man when he begins his
holiday with a rough sea crossing, "How on earth did I ever imagine that
there was advantage to be obtained out of this?"

That was the moment which was chosen by one of the party to go along and
see that the men were all right. There was a sentry in the next bay of
the trench. All by himself, but "right as rain," as he puts it. Shrapnel
was breaking in showers on the parapet, swishing overhead like driven
hail. While the enemy is bursting shell on your parapet he cannot come
there himself. Provided that your sentry's nerves are all right, and
that a "crump" does not drop right into his little section of trench,
there is not much that can go wrong. And there is nothing much wanting
in the nerves of this infantry.

However, something had clearly gone wrong with this attack. It was
quite obvious that the enemy somehow or another knew that it was coming
off, and where; for he had begun to shoot back within a very few minutes
of our opening shot, and he was shooting very hard. Clearly he had
noticed some point in our preparations, and he too had prepared. "I will
teach these people a lesson this time," he thought, as he laid his guns
on the likely section.

Right in the midst of all this uproar we heard one of his machine-guns
cracking overhead. Then another joined in--we could hear them traversing
from flank to front and round to flank again. "Of course, the raiders
cannot have got in," one thought. "Perhaps he has seen them crossing No
Man's Land, and those machine-guns are on to them in the open. Poor
beggars! Not much chance for them now"--and one shivered at the thought
of them out there, open and defenceless to that hail. As the minutes
slipped on towards the hour, and our bombardment slackened, but the
enemy's did not, and no one stirred at all in th