l what
price battalions had paid for success. Nothing could bring back the
lives of comrades who had fallen in front of Thiepval to the survivors
of that action; but could they have seen the broad belts of No Man's
Land with only an occasional prostrate figure it would have had the
reassurance that another time they might have easier going. Wherever the
Germans had brought a machine gun into action the results of its work
lay a stark warning of the necessity of silencing these automatic
killers before a charge. Yet from Mametz to Montauban the losses had
been light, leaving no doubt that the Germans, convinced that the weight
of the attack would be to the north, had been caught napping.

The Allies could not conceal the fact and general location of their
offensive, but they did conceal its plan as a whole. The small number of
shell-craters attested that no such artillery curtains of fire had been
concentrated here as from Thiepval to Gommecourt. Probably the Germans
had not the artillery to spare or had drawn it off to the north.

All branches of the winning army making themselves at home in the
conquered area among the dead and the litter behind the old German first
line--this was the fringe of the action. Beyond was the battle itself,
with the firing-line still advancing under curtains of shell-bursts.

VIII

FORWARD THE GUNS!

An audacious battery--"An unusual occasion"--Guns to the front at
night--Close to the firing-line--Not so dangerous for observers--The
German lines near by--Advantages of even a gentle slope--Skilfully
chosen German positions--A game of hide and seek with
death--Business-like progress--Haze, shell-smoke and moving
figures--Each figure part of the "system."

Hadn't that battery commander mistaken his directions when he emplaced
his howitzers behind a bluff in the old No Man's Land? Didn't he know
that the German infantry was only the other side of the knoll and that
two or three score German batteries were in range? I looked for a
tornado to descend forthwith upon the gunners' heads. I liked their
audacity, but did not court their company when I could not break a habit
of mind bred in the rules of trench-tied warfare where the other fellow
was on the lookout for just such fair targets as they.

For the moment these "hows" were not firing and the gunners were in a
little circumscribed world of their own, dissociated from the movement
around them as they busily du