lurid red
meridian. I don't know how many hands had pulled lanyards on exactly the
same instant but the consequent spread of fire looked like one
continuous flame.

Now the "seventy-fives" are speaking, not in unison, but at various
speeds, limited only by the utmost celerity of the sweating gun crews.

But the German front line is not the only locality receiving unsolicited
attention. Enemy gun positions far behind the lines are being plastered
with high explosives and anesthetised with gas shells.

So effective is the American artillery neutralisation of the German
batteries, that it is between fifteen and twenty minutes before the
first enemy gun replies to the terrific barrage. And though expected
momentarily, a German counter barrage fails to materialise.

In our tree top we wait for the enemy's counter shelling but the
retaliation does not develop. When occupying an exposed position, the
suspense of waiting for an impending blow increases in tenseness as the
delay continues and the expectations remain unrealised. With no
inclination to be unreasonable, one even prays for the speedy delivery
of the blow in the same way that the man with the aching tooth urges the
dentist to speed up and have it over with.

"Why in hell don't they come back at us?" Griffin asks. "I've had myself
all tuned up for the last twenty minutes to have a leg blown off and be
thankful. I hate this waiting stuff."

"Keep your shirt on, Pete," Stanton remarks. "Give 'em a chance to get
their breath and come out of their holes. That barrage drove 'em down a
couple hundred feet into the ground and they haven't any elevators to
come up on. We'll hear from 'em soon enough."

We did, but it was not more than a whisper as compared with what they
were receiving from our side of the line. The German artillery came into
lethargic action after the American barrage had been in constant
operation for thirty minutes and then the enemy's fire was only
desultory. Only an occasional shell from Kulturland came our way, and
even they carried a rather tired, listless buzz, as though they didn't
know exactly where they were going and didn't care.

Six or eight of them hummed along a harmless orbit not far above our
tree top and fell in the forest. It certainly looked as though we were
shooting all the hard-stuff and the German end of the fireworks party
was all coloured lights and Roman candles. Of the six shells that passed
us, three failed to explode u