e forward.
The weight of our equipment sank us into the soft mud and the only way
we got onto the road again was by hanging to the stirrups of the horses
as they ploughed a way through. We also passed ropes back for the men
to grasp and harnessed them to mules, and thus dragged them to firm
ground. The road did not carry us far, and we soon had to struggle
across the open toward the support trenches. This was not as bad as
round the camp, not being churned up by the tramping about of men and
horses. We could not use the communication-trenches as they were
rivers of liquid mud, but had to wait till dark and go over the top in
relieving the front line. On this occasion we took over from the
Grenadier Guards, which numbers among its officers many of the English
nobility. We "bushies" and "outbackers" from the Land of the Kangaroo
stepped down into the mud-holes just vacated by an earl, several lords,
and as noble and proud a regiment as ever won glory on a battle-field.
The Prince of Wales was a staff-captain in the army of the Somme doing
his bit in the mud and misery like the rest of us. There is no "sacred
privilege that doth hedge about a king" in the British Empire, and King
George is respected among us for his manliness, and we cheered him
sincerely when he twice visited us in the trenches, for we do not
believe to-day in the divine right of kings, neither do we believe in
the divine right of majorities.

In another chapter that tells of my wounding I have pictured our days
and weeks as lived in these trenches, so I will bring this chapter to a
close by summarizing some of the things that the great push on the
Somme accomplished.

(1) It relieved the pressure on Verdun.

(2) It accounted for several hundred thousand German casualties.

(3) It demonstrated our ability to break through.

(4) It led to the perfecting of barrage-fire where-by casualties were
reduced in our infantry to an astonishing degree.

(5) It gave confidence to our troops by enabling them to get to
hand-grips with the German, and discover that he was individually no
fighter.

(6) It weakened the morale of the German army enormously, and convinced
the German soldier that his cause was lost.

(7) It gave to us possession of the high ground.

(8) It definitely established our supremacy of the air, and was the
turning-point of the whole war.

[1] Robt. W. Service.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ARMY'S PAIR OF EYES

The aeroplane h