, but we knew that all along the line our
trenches were bristling with energy and filled with men animated with
one resolve, with one fierce determination. It is no wonder that to
those who have been in the war and passed through such moments,
ordinary life and literature seem very tame. The thrill of such a
moment is worth years of peace-time existence. To the watcher of a
spectacle so awful and sublime, even human companionship struck a
jarring note. I went over to a place by myself where I could not hear
the other men talking, and there I waited. I watched the luminous
hands of my watch get nearer and nearer to the fateful moment, for the
barrage was to open at five-thirty. At five-fifteen the sky was
getting lighter and already one could make out objects distinctly in
the fields below. The long hand of my watch was at five-twenty-five.
The fields, the roads, and the hedges were beginning to show the
difference of colour in the early light. Five-twenty-seven! In (p. 168)
three minutes the rain of death was to begin. In the awful silence
around it seemed as if Nature were holding her breath in expectation
of the staggering moment. Five-twenty-nine! God help our men!
Five-thirty! With crisp sharp reports the iron throats of a battery
nearby crashed forth their message of death to the Germans, and from
three thousand guns at that moment the tempest of death swept through
the air. It was a wonderful sound. The flashes of guns in all
directions made lightnings in the dawn. The swish of shells through
the air was continuous, and far over on the German trenches I saw the
bursts of flame and smoke in a long continuous line, and, above the
smoke, the white, red and green lights, which were the S.O.S. signals
from the terrified enemy. In an instant his artillery replied, and
against the morning clouds the bursting shrapnel flashed. Now and then
our shells would hit a German ammunition dump, and, for a moment, a
dull red light behind the clouds of smoke, added to the grandeur of
the scene. I knelt on the ground and prayed to the God of Battles to
guard our noble men in that awful line of death and destruction, and
to give them victory, and I am not ashamed to confess that it was with
the greatest difficulty I kept back my tears. There was so much human
suffering and sorrow, there were such tremendous issues involved in
that fierce attack, there was such splendour of human character being
manifested now in that "far flung lin