plunged into the heart of
the most modern of battles. They had been in many sorts of battle
before; but they had never been in the brunt of the whole war where the
science and ingenuity of war had reached for the moment their highest
pitch. One month ago they plunged into the very brunt and apex of it.
And they are still fighting there.

People have spoken of this war as the war of trenches. But the latest
battles have reached a stage beyond that. The war of trenches is a
comfortable out-of-date phase, to be looked upon with regret and perhaps
even some longing. The war of to-day is a war of craters and potholes--a
war of crannies and nicks and crevices torn out of the earth yesterday,
and to be shattered into new shapes to-morrow. It may not seem easy to
believe, but we have seen the Germans under heavy bombardment leaving
the shelter of their trenches for safety in the open--jumping out and
running forward into shell holes--anywhere so long as they got away from
the cover which they had built for themselves. The trench which they
left is by next day non-existent--even the airmen looking down on it
from above in the mists of the grey dawn can scarcely tell where it was.
Then some community of ants sets to work and the line begins to show
again. Again it is obliterated, until a stage comes when the German
decides that it is not worth while digging it out. He has other lines,
and he turns his energy on to them.

The result of all this is that areas of ground in the hot corners of
battles like that of the Somme and Verdun, and especially disputed hill
summits such as the Mort Homme or this Pozieres Ridge, become simply a
desert of shell craters.

A few days back, going to a portion of the line which had considerably
altered since I was there, I went by a trench which was marked on the
map. It was a good trench, but it did not seem to have been greatly used
of late, which was rather surprising. "You won't find it quite so good
all the way," said a friend who was coming down.

Presently, and quite suddenly, the trench shallowed. The sides which had
been clean cut were tumbled in. The fallen earth blocked the passage,
and the journey became a switchback over tumbled rubbish and into the
trench again. Someone had before been living in the trench, for there
were tools in it and bits of soldiers' gear. Here and there a shattered
rifle stuck out of the terra-cotta soil. The trench shallowed still
further. There had been litt