n the distance was the main German second trench line on the crest of
Longueval and High Wood Ridge, which the British were later to win after
a struggle which left nothing of woods or villages or ridges except
shell-craters. Naturally, the Germans had not restricted their original
defenses to the ridge itself, any more than the French had theirs to the
hills immediately in front of Verdun. They had placed their original
first-line trenches along the series of advantageous positions on the
slope and turned every bit of woods and every eminence into a strong
point on the way back to the second line, whose barbed-wire
entanglements rusted by long exposure were distinct under the glasses.
A German officer stood on the parapet looking out in our direction,
probably trying to locate the British infantry advance which was hugging
a fold in the ground and resting there for the time being. I imagined
how beaver-like were the Germans in the second line strengthening their
defenses. I scanned all the slopes facing us in the hope of seeing a
German battery. There must be one under those balls of black smoke from
high explosives from British guns and another a half mile away under the
same kind of shower.

"They withdrew most of their guns behind the ridge overnight," said an
officer, "in order to avoid capture in case we made another rush."

On the other side of this natural wall they would be safe from any
except aerial observation, and the advanced British batteries, though
all in the open, were in folds in the ground, or behind bluffs, or just
below the skyline of a rise where they had found their assigned position
by the map. How much a few feet of depression in a field, a slightly
sunken road, the grade of a gentle slope, which hid man or gun from view
counted for I did not realize that day as I was to realize in the fierce
fight for position which was to come in succeeding weeks.

It was easy to understand why the Germans had made a strong point in the
first line where I was standing, for it was a position which, in
relation to both the British and the German trenches, would instantly
appeal to the tactical eye. Here they had emplaced machine guns manned
by chosen desperate men which had given the British charge its worst
experience over a mile front. I could see all the movement over a broad
area to the rear which, however, the rise under my feet hid from the
ridge where the German officer stood. The advantage which the Ge