le destroyers can whirl in any direction at will, so when the
order comes for the "rideau de fer" at any point, literally hundreds
of guns within a few seconds are converging their fire there, dropping
a metal curtain through which no mortal enemy can advance.

In this section the French dropped nearly a quarter of a million
shells in one day. Unlike the English shrapnel, which makes little
impression against earthworks, the French use explosive shells almost
entirely.

As I walked over this section after the curtain had been lifted, I was
absolutely baffled for descriptive words. All the earth in that
vicinity seemed battered out of shape. The dead needed no burial
there. Down under the wreck and ruin the dead all lie covered just
where they fell.

Among the places I either visited or at least was able to see plainly,
all of which were held by the Germans at the time of my last trip,
were Saint Eloi, Carrency, Notre Dame de Lorette, Souchez, and
Neuville Saint Vaast, where the fighting still continues from house to
house.

I found the same efficient, imperturbable army that I discovered
previously, all absolutely sure of complete victory not very far off.
I got an illustration on this trip of the imperturbability of the
French soldier in such a way as I never before believed existed. We
were walking along a country lane to a turning where a trench boyau
began. Just at the turning the nose of a "seventy-five" poked across
the path. Although the gun was speaking at its high record of twenty
shots per minute, several soldiers lolled idly about within a few
yards, smoking cigarettes. We stood off at an angle slightly in front,
but about thirty yards away.

It was evening. We could see the spurt of flame from the mouth of the
gun as the shell departed to the distant Germans.

Across the road in the direction the gun pointed was a field. There,
almost in the path of the gun, which, instead of being raised at an
angle, was pointed horizontally, and only fifteen yards away, I saw a
man grubbing in the soil. He seemed so directly in the path of the
shells that I don't believe they missed blowing off his head by more
than two feet. But he just grubbed away, almost on his hands and
knees. If the gunners saw him they paid not the slightest attention,
but just calmly went on firing.

One of our party called the situation to the attention of an officer,
who immediately began dancing up and down, calling to the man to "Come