e which was harmless, not even asphyxiating, its only purpose
being to screen the infantry attack, with a gentle breeze sweeping it on
into the mantle over Contalmaison as the wind carries the smoke of a
prairie fire. Lookout Mountain was known as the battle in the clouds,
where generals could not see what their troops were doing. Now all
battles are in a cloud.

From the first-line British trench the first wave of the British attack
moved under cover of the smoke-screen and directly you saw that the
shells had ceased to fall in Contalmaison. Its smoke mantle slowly
lifting revealed fragmentary walls of that sturdy, defiant chateau still
standing. Another wave of British infantry was on its way. Four waves in
all were to go in, each succeeding one with its set part in supporting
the one in front and in mastering the dugouts and machine gun positions
that might have survived.

With no shells falling in Contalmaison, the bomb and the bayonet had the
stage to themselves, a stage more or less hemmed in by explosions and
with a sweep of projectiles from both sides passing over the heads of
the cast in a melodrama which had "blessed little comedy relief," as one
soldier put it. The Germans were already shelling the former British
first line and their supports, while the British maintained a curtain of
fire on the far side of the village to protect their infantry as it
worked its way through the debris, and any fire which they had to spare
after lifting it from Contalmaison they were distributing on different
strong points, not in curtains but in a repetition of punches. It was
the best artillery work that I had seen and its purpose seemed that of a
man with a stick knocking in any head that appeared from any hole.

Act III. now. The British curtain of fire was lifted from the far edge
of the village, which meant that the infantry according to schedule
should be in possession of all of the village. But they might not stay.
They might be forced out soon after they sent up their signals. When the
Germans turned on a curtain of fire succeeding the British fire this was
further evidence of British success sufficient to convince any skeptic.
The British curtain was placed beyond it to hold off any counter-attack
and prevent sniping till the new occupants of the premises had "dug
themselves in."

The Germans had not forgotten that it was their turn now to hammer
Contalmaison, through which they thought that British reserves and f