t the British troops. By five o'clock
Messines itself was captured by the fearless Australians. There was a
most desperate struggle just here where we were standing at Wytschaete.
All morning the battle raged along this line, but by midday it was in
the hands of the dashing Irish division. Seven thousand prisoners were
taken, while the British casualties, owing to the effective protection
of their terrific barrage, were far less than the German and only
one-fifth of what they had calculated as necessary to take this
strategic position.

We make our way up to the crest of the Messines ridge where we can look
back on the conquered territory and forward to the new lines. The
great guns are in action all about us. They are again wearing down the
enemy in preparation for the next advance. For the moment we feel only
the grand and awful throb of vast titanic forces in terrible conflict.
Day and night, in the air, on the earth, and beneath it, the war is
slowly or swiftly being waged. The fire of battle smolders or leaps
into flames or vast explosions, but never goes out.

Above us the very air is full of conflict. Hanging several hundred
feet high are half a dozen huge fixed kite-balloons, with their
occupants busily observing, sketching, mapping, or reporting the
enemy's movements. Each of these is a target for the attacking
aeroplanes and the occupants must be ready, at a moment's notice, to
leap into a parachute when they are shot down. High above these
balloons a score of British planes are darting about or dashing over
the enemy's lines, acting as the eyes of the huge guns hidden away
behind us. We are looking at one far up seemingly soaring in peace
like a graceful bird poised in the air, when suddenly we see it
surrounded by a dozen little white patches of smoke which show that it
has come within range of the enemy's anti-aircraft guns and the clouds
of shrapnel are bursting about it. Most of them break wide of the mark
and it sails on unscathed over the enemy's lines. Just above us is
hanging a German _taube_, obviously watching us and the automobile
which we had left below in the road, while the British huge
anti-aircraft guns near by are feeling for it, shot after shot.

We duck into our little Y M C A dugout, just under the crest of the
ridge. It is an old, deserted German pit for deadly gas shells, which
even now are lying about uncomfortably near, in heaps still unexploded.
Here the men going t