eceive reports as to how this division or corps is
retreating or advancing--can have any real conception of the big battle,
and these persons may see it only at a distance.

So the usual process of things in general is reversed, and the person
farthest removed from the fighting may really see, or rather know, most
about it.

And so with a storm of shot and shell, manmade thunders and lightnings,
and bolts of death from the earth below and the air above, the great
battle opened and advanced.

It progressed just as other battles had progressed. There was a terrific
artillery preparation, which took the Germans evidently by surprise,
for the response was long in coming, and then it was not in proportion.
After the great cannon had done their best to level the big guns on the
German side, a barrage, or curtain of fire was started, and behind this,
which was in reality a falling hail of bullets, the Americans and their
supporting French and British comrades advanced. The curtain of steel
was to kill or push back the Germans, and to make it safe for the
Americans to go forward. By elevating the small guns the curtain fell
farther and farther into the enemy's territory, thus making it possible
for the Allies to go on farther and farther across No Man's Land.

The infantry rushed forward, fighting and dying nobly in a noble cause.
Position after position was consolidated as the Germans fell back before
the rain of shot and shell. It is always this way in an offensive, small
or large. The first rush of the attacking side, be it German, French,
British, or American, carries everything before it. It is the counter
attack that tells. If the attackers are strong enough to hold what they
gain, well and good. If not--the attack is a failure.

But this one--the first great attack of the Americans--was not destined
to fail, though once it trembled in the balance.

Tom and Jack, with their companions, had flown aloft, and, taking the
stations assigned to them, did their part in the battle. As the light
grew with the break of day, they could see the effect of the American
big guns. It was devastating. And yet some German batteries lived
through it. Several times Tom and Jack, by means of their wireless,
sent back corrections so that the American pieces might be aimed more
effectively. Below them was a maelstrom--an indescribable chaos of death
and destruction. They only had glimpses of it--glimpses of a seemingly
inextricable mixtur