en held impregnable for two years, captured
seventy thousand prisoners, reclaimed several hundred square miles
of the sacred soil of France, and smashed once and for all the
German-fostered fable of the invincibility of the German Army. It was
good to have lived and suffered during those early and lean years, if
only to be present at their fulfilment.

But at this moment the battle was only beginning, and the bulk of
their astounding achievement was still to come. Nevertheless, in the
cautious and modest estimate of their Commander-in-Chief, they had
already done something.

_After ten days and nights of continuous fighting_, said the first
official report, _our troops have completed the methodical capture
of the whole of the enemy's first system of defence on a front of
fourteen thousand yards. This system of defence consisted of numerous
and continuous lines of fire trenches, extending to depths of from two
thousand to four thousand yards, and included five strongly fortified
villages, numerous heavily entrenched woods, and a large number of
immensely strong redoubts. The capture of each of these trenches
represented an operation of some importance, and the whole of them are
now in our hands_.

Quite so. One feels, somehow, that Berlin would have got more out of
such a theme.

* * * * *

Now let us get back to our O Pip. If you peep over the shoulder of
Captain Leslie, the gunner observing officer, as he directs the fire
of his battery, situated some thousands of yards in rear, through
the medium of map, field-glass, and telephone, you will obtain an
excellent view of to-morrow's field of battle. Present in the O Pip
are Colonel Kemp, Wagstaffe, Bobby Little, and Angus M'Lachlan. The
latter had been included in the party because, to quote his Commanding
Officer, "he would have burst into tears if he had been left out."

Overhead roared British shells of every kind and degree of
unpleasantness, for the ground in front was being "prepared" for the
coming assault. The undulating landscape, running up to a low ridge
on the skyline four miles away, was spouting smoke in all
directions--sometimes black, sometimes green, and sometimes, where
bursting shell and brick-dust intermingled, blood-red. Beyond the
ridge all-conquering British aeroplanes occupied the firmament,
observing for "mother" and "granny" and signalling encouragement or
reproof to these ponderous but sprightly relatives