le framework, of the wonderful engines with their short lives, and
of the skilled battalions of workers in factories. The Germans had to
bring more planes from another front in order to restore the balance.
The Allies foreseeing this brought still more themselves, till the
numbers were so immense that when a battle between a score of planes on
either side took place no one dared venture the opinion that the limit
had been reached--not while there was so much room in the air and
volunteers for the aviation corps were so plentiful.

XXIII

A PATENT CURTAIN OF FIRE

Thiepval again--Director of tactics of an army corps--Graduates of
Staff Colleges--Army jargon--An army director's office--"Hope you
will see a good show"--"This road is shelled; closed to vehicles"--A
perfect summer afternoon--The view across No Man's Land--Nests of
burrowers more cunning than any rodents--men--Tranquil preliminaries
to an attack--The patent curtain of fire--Registering by practice
shots--Running as men will run only from death--The tall officer who
collapsed--"The shower of death."

"We had a good show day before yesterday," said Brigadier-General Philip
Howell, when I went to call on him one day. "Sorry you were not here.
You could have seen it excellently."

The corps of which he was general staff officer had taken a section of
first-line trench at Thiepval with more prisoners than casualties, which
is the kind of news they like to hear at General Headquarters. Thiepval
was always in the background of the army's mind, the symbol of rankling
memory which irritated British stubbornness and consoled the enemy for
his defeat of July 15th and his gradual loss of the Ridge. The Germans,
on the defensive, considered that the failure to take Thiepval at the
beginning of the Somme battle proved its impregnability; the British,
on the offensive, considered no place impregnable.

Faintly visible from the hills around Albert, distinctly from the
observation post in a high tree, the remains of the village looked like
a patch of coal dust smeared in a fold of the high ground. When British
fifteen-inch shells made it their target some of the dust rose in a
great geyser and fell back into place; but there were cellars in
Thiepval which even fifteen-inch shells could not penetrate.

"However, we'll make the Germans there form the habit of staying
indoors," said a gunner.

Howell who had the Thiepval task in hand I ha