t.

Two flashes and two reports, the barest distinguishable interval, and
the black horizon belches red. From extreme left to extreme right the
flattened proscenium in front of us glows with the ghastliness of the
Broockon.

Waves of light flush the dark vault above like the night sky over South
Chicago's blast furnaces. The heavens reflect the glare. The flashes
range in colour from blinding yellow to the softest tints of pink. They
seem to form themselves from strange combinations of greens and mauves
and lavenders.

The sharp shattering crash of the guns reaches our ears almost on the
instant. The forest shakes and our tree top sways with the slam of the
heavies close by. The riven air whimpers with the husky whispering of
the rushing load of metal bolts passing above us.

Looking up into that void, we deny the uselessness of the act and seek
in vain to follow the trains of those unseen things that make the air
electric with their presence. We hear them coming, passing, going, but
see not one of them.

"There's whole blacksmith's shops sailing over our heads on the way to
Germany," Pat Guahn shouts in my ear. "I guess the Dutchman sure knows
how to call for help. He doesn't care for that first wallop, and he
thinks he would like about a half million reserves from the Russian
front."

"That darkness out in No Man's Land don't make any hit with him either,"
Stanton contributes. "He's got it lit up so bright I'm homesick for
Broadway."

Now comes the thunder of the shell arrivals. You know the old covered
wooden bridges that are still to be found in the country. Have you ever
heard a team of horses and a farm wagon thumping and rumbling over such
a bridge on the trot?

Multiply the horse team a thousand times. Lash the animals from the trot
to the wild gallop. Imagine the sound of their stampede through the
echoing wooden structure and you approach in volume and effect the
rumble and roar of the steel as it rained down on that little German
salient that night.

"Listen to them babies bustin'," says Griffin. "I'm betting them
groundhogs is sure huntin' their holes right now and trying to dig clear
through to China."

That was the sound and sight of that opening salvo from all guns, from
the small trench mortars in the line, the lightest field pieces behind
them, the heavy field pieces about us and the ponderous railroad
artillery located behind us.

Its crash has slashed the inkiness in front of us with a