I T’. two days since I made my last jotting. How much has happened since then! Since then we’ve smashed the Hun Front, crumpled it up and swept it back for a distance of fourteen miles. It’s difficult to say whether there is any Hun Front left; there’s a mob withdrawing in tumultuous retreat and picked suicide-troops, fighting stubborn rearguard actions.

To-day it is our turn to sit down and hold the line in depth. The troops which were behind us yesterday, have leap-frogged us and passed through us. They’re fresh and with their unspoilt strength are battering their way still further forward, herding the enemy into panic-stricken groups, and cutting them off from the main body with their tremendous weight of shel’s. Pressing on their heels, like policemen dispersing a riot, come the ponderous tanks, making no arrests and impersonally bludgeoning every protest into silence.

How far our chaps have penetrated by now we cannot guess, but their guns sound very faintly across the hazy summer distance. To-morrow we shall again hook in and gallop into the point of the fighting-wedge, while the troops who are up front to-day will sit tight and hold. This is war as we have always dreamt of it and never hoped to find it.

At last we have our desire; we have leapt out of our trenches, left the filth of No Man’s Land behind, and have slipped off into the blue, where we follow a moving battle across plains and wheat-fields to the unravished lands of Germany.

It’s the afternoon of August the ninth. It was on the evening of the seventh that we crept out on foot from the shadow of the Boves Woods. The roads were packed with infantry and tanks moving forward in a solid mass; this night everything was moving in the one direction—there was no returning traffic. Hidden in the ravines, just back of the guns, we came across the cavalry, ready to advance the moment a breach in the line bad been announced. In contrast with the nervous irritation of other nights, this night there was an uncomplaining austerity. Suspense was nearly at an end, anticipation of dying was soon to be replaced by death’s actual presence. The great question in all our minds was, did the Hun know? Had he known all the time? Was he planning to catch us and to forestall our attack by an offensive of his own before morning?

On our arrival at the gun-position in front of the orchard we found that everything was normal and quiet. The odd shell was coming over and bursting with its accustomed regularity in the accustomed places. The enemy had not changed his targets. From his Front-line in the valley below us, the normal amount of flares were going up. The machine-gun fire came in irregular bursts and lazily, as if the entire business were a matter of form and not to be taken too much to heart by anybody. The only noticeable difference was of our making. To drown the throb of our advancing tanks, a great number of bombing-planes had been sent up, which kept flying to and fro at a low altitude above the enemy’s trenches. This peaceful state of affairs was too good to last, so we at once set to work feverishly upon our final preparations. Not a man slacked or spared himself; each one knew that before morning his own life might depend upon the honesty of his effort. I don’t think, however, it was our own particular lives that concerned us so much as the lives of our pals.

We divided the men into parties, so many to dig the six gun-platforms and so many to sort and stack the ammunition. Every hour or so we changed them over, so that they might not get stale at their task. As soon as the platforms were sufficiently advanced, we man-handled the guns into position and gave them their lines. After that we felt more secure; if the enemy were to anticipate our offensive, we would now be able to reply.

Time did not permit of our constructing sufficient protection for our men; besides, in so exposed a position, we should either escape by reason of the enemy’s panic or else get wiped out. We threw up a wall of sand-bags and turf about the guns to save their crews from splinters, and dug a more or less splinter-proof hole in which the signallers and the Major could do their work. In this hole, by the light of a solitary candle we made out the barrage-table with the times, lifts, rates of fire and ammunition expenditure for the attack, and explained it to the sergeants in charge of the gun-detachments. At 3 a. m. we served the men with hot tea, bully beef and slices of bread. Then we sat down to await developments. Our attack was planned to open at 4.20, just as the dawn would be peeping above the horizon.

Luckily for us a heavy mist had risen up which, as night drew towards morning, had thickened to the density of a fog. It had the effect of blanketing sound. It needed to, for as the tanks lumbered nearer to the Front-line to their jumping-off points, the whole world seemed to shake with their clamour. It was like a city of giants marching nearer and forever nearer. Not even the droning of the bombing-planes could drown the ominous breathing of their engines and the clangour of their iron tread.

Whether it was the number and the low altitude of the planes or that the Hun had actually heard the unusual commotion behind our lines, by 3 a. m. he became suspicious. His harassing fire, which usually dies down about that hour, leapt up into a novel intensity. He began to search and sweep new areas, which before had been free from shell-fire, It was a good thing that our work was completed, for we had to throw ourselves down and hug the ground to avoid the splinters. Most of his shells went plus of us and plunged into the orchard behind. Little sudden illuminations sprang up where piles of ammunition had been struck and were burning. He was evidently making guesses and consulting his map for anything that seemed likely, for when his shelling was working most destruction, he would switch to a new target, where it was wasted. The fog and the night combined, entirely prevented him from seeing what he was doing and from observing the tell-tale conflagrations he had created. We thanked our lucky stars that our position was a bad one and that we weren’t in the orchard.

The most nerve-racking moments in any fight are the moments preceding the start of the fight. One suddenly becomes possessed of extraordinary lucidity, somewhat similar to the clarity of thought which is said to be experienced by the drowning. He reviews his entire life in a flash, its failures, successes, unkindnesses and follies. He appreciates with ineffectual poignancy the affections he has wasted and the generosities he has omitted. It is as though, after having walked through all his years, he unexpectedly went aeroplaning and saw below him the panorama of his chances and achievements; he sees the might-have-been high-roads he could have taken, leading to white cities on the hills, and the crooked lanes he did actually choose, losing themselves in quagmire. Most particularly, in the moments of waiting, he thinks of children, because they are immortality. He wishes with a passionate regret that he had foreseen this hour, and could have left someone behind him who would perpetuate his body long after it has been obliterated and defiled. All the purposes and dignities for which he was created become miraculously obvious to him now. He feels a dull resentment that this clearness of vision was denied him till the power to choose was beyond his choice.

Sometimes this startling mental lucidity takes the form of an unnatural clairvoyance; he acutely apprehends happenings which are out of all possible reach of his senses. His imagination becomes abnormally alert. Lying beneath the weight of darkness, hanging over the lip of the valley, divided from the enemy by a sea of fog, I saw with absolute distinctness the frenzy which was in progress behind the hostile lines. I retain pictures which are as clean-cut as if they had been witnessed. Nine-tenths of the opposing army are sleeping. The sentries have been posted, the distress signals have been arranged and the batteries allotted their several tasks. At sunset everything seems serene; but as night settles down and the mist rises, an unaccountable uneasiness oppresses the spirits of the one-tenth who watch. Each man feels it, but he fears to voice his alarm till he has proofs which would warrant it. He notes the unusual number of planes in the air; but they are neither machinegunning nor bombing, and on account of the intense darkness they cannot spy. He may report their presence to headquarters, but there are no grounds for being disturbed so long as they are doing no harm. Besides, he is no expert; he may be mistaken as to their numbers. Then, little by little, above their drone he hears another sound—the sound as of a tidal wave travelling towards him, growing more menacing and taller as it approaches. He peers into the fog and imagines stealthy figures moving. The scurrying of a rat makes him break into a cold sweat. He calls to the next sentry; but his voice will not carry. He realizes that whatever happens, he is alone and cut off. His flares and rockets, if he fires them, will bring him no assistance; they will be smothered by the mountainous wall of whiteness. Fear seizes him, which he can no longer master; at the same time the same fear seizes every other watcher. By telephone or runner they each one send bark tidings of their terror.

But the nine-tenths of the enemy who are sleeping are annoyed at being disturbed. “It is nothing,” they declare. The news spreads slowly from battalion to brigade, brigade to division, division to corps, from corps to army. Each headquarters, peevish at being aroused and hesitant about arousing its next senior headquarters, wastes time in checking back to the watcher in the front-line for confirmation of his doubts. What is it that he fears? No attack is to be expected; the Allies’ storm-troops are up north. There is positive evidence of that fact. The worst that can be looked for is a local raiding-party. What are the reasons for his panic?

The reasons for his panic! They are vague, indefinite; he has no reasons—only intuitions, doubts, conjectures. He knows that the night is black and that he is filled with a horrible foreboding.

There are too many men over there across No Man’s Land. He cannot prove it, but he can feel their bated breath.

Reluctantly the nine-tenths of the army who were sleeping, are awakened. They lie listening in their deep dug-outs, unwilling to believe that calamity threatens. Then suddenly, when it is too late to be prepared, the suspicion strengthens that a major offensive will open with the morning. There is only an hour till dawn—too little time to act. The infantry are ordered to stand to in the trenches and the batteries to increase their rate of fire. Messages are sent to the rear to hurry up the reserves. Brigades of artillery, which are out at rest, hook in and start forward at the gallop. Even the most autocratic old generals are convinced and, to save their reputations, forsake their beds and become officiously important. Meanwhile, the men in the Front-line shiver in the darkness. They know that they have no chance now and are merely waiting to be slaughtered.

And we, on our side of No Man’s Land, we wait also. We do not like the job in hand; we were not born to be butchers. We are very much the same as those chaps over there. If we could, we would prefer to live our lives out, shake hands with the enemy and go home to our families. We have no quarrel with them individually; but we have no means of telling them that. It seems stupid to have come so far, to have suffered such hardships, to have sat up so many weary nights, simply in order to do something for which four years ago we should have been hanged. But we can’t wriggle out of it. If we tried to break away, all along the roads of France armed men are stationed to turn us back. We are impotent to express any choice in the matter. Certain people have quarrelled—people who do not wear khaki and who will never face death at sunrise. Who they are and why they should have quarrelled, we do not properly understand. Probably they muddled themselves into this row; how they did it, they themselves could not tell us. They’re kings and statesmen and nobs—far too high up for us to criticise. All we know is that we are their sacrifice. Because they say it is right, the more men we kill at dawn, the more glory we shall earn. Later on, if we survive the war and kill only one man, they will tell us it is wrong, and we shall end on the scaffold.

It’s all very puzzling—devilishly puzzling, when one’s brains and hands and feet are numbed with cold. It’s always perishing at three in the morning——-But these thoughts don’t do a chap any good; there’s nothing to be gained by philosophizing. It’s been going on for four years now—this living in mud and bathing in sweat, and always killing something God hasn’t spoken. He must know what he wants. \

At 3.45 a. m. the sergeants reported that all their fuzes were set. At four o’clock the whistle was blown for the “stand to” and the gun-crews crouched behind their guns in readiness. They needed to crouch, for the enemy shelling was finding us out and growing momentarily in intensity. Evidently more of their artillery was coming up and getting into action. From four o’clock onwards every five minutes the whistle blew and through the darkness a spectral voice announced: “Fifteen minutes to go”; “ten minutes to go”; “five minutes to go.” From far and wide behind the fog other whistles were heard sounding, and other voices making the same announcement. The last five minutes were counted off separately and the final minute in intervals of ten seconds: “Thirty seconds to go, twenty, ten, five.” Then, “Let her rip,” and a shrill blast of the whistle.

As though red-hot needles were stabbing at the drums, our ears are ringing and deafened. The air quivers and the ground flies up as if it were about to open. Our eyes are scorched by a marching wall of flame, against which are etched our rapid gunners, hurling hell across the valley like men demented, and our gallant eighteen-pounders barking, recoiling and bristling like infuriated terriers. We’re off with a vengeance. The greatest offensive of the war has started. Shall we get away with it in so advanced a position? At all events, it’s an end of waiting—that at least is a comfort.