well. Half a mile ahead, upon the face of a
gentle slope, a sequence of flames would spout from the ground, and a
storm of shells go whistling on their way. No sooner had this happened
than there would come a shattering roar from the ground beneath our
feet, and a heavy battery, concealed in a hedge fifty yards to our
front, would launch its contribution. Farther back lay heavier batteries
still, and beyond that batteries so powerful and so distant that one
heard the shell pass before the report arrived. One of these monsters,
coming apparently from infinity and bound for the back of beyond,
lumbered wearily over the heads of "A" Company, partaking of breakfast.

Private Mucklewame paused in the act of raising his canteen to his
lips.

"There's Wullie awa' for a walk!" he observed.

Considering that they were upon the eve of an epoch-making combat, the
regiment were disappointingly placid.

In the Officers' Mess the prevailing note was neither lust of battle
nor fear of death: it was merely that ordinary snappishness which is
induced by early rising and uncomfortable surroundings.

"It's going to rain, too," grumbled Major Kemp.

At this moment the Colonel arrived, with final instructions from the
Brigadier.

"We move off at a quarter to four," he said, "up Fountain Alley and
Scottish Trench, into Central Boyau"--"boyau" is the name which is
given to a communication-trench in trenches which, like those in front
of us, are of French extraction--"and so over the parapet. There we
extend, as arranged, into lines of half-companies, and go at 'em,
making Douvrin our objective, and keeping the Hohenzollern and Fosse
Eight upon our left."

Fosse Eight is a mighty waste-heap, such as you may behold anywhere
along the railway in the colliery districts between Glasgow and
Edinburgh. The official map calls such an eminence a Fosse; the Royal
Engineers call it a Dump; Operation Orders call it a Slag-Heap;
experts like Ogg and Hogg (who ought to know if any one does) call it
a Bing. From this distance, two miles away, the Fosse looks as big
as North Berwick Law. It is one of the many scattered about this
district, all carefully numbered by the Ordnance. There are others,
again, towards Hulluch and Loos. Number Eight has been the object
of pressing attentions on the part of our big guns ever since the
bombardment began, three weeks ago; but it still stands up--gaunt,
grim, and defiant--against the eastern sky. Whether any