For a moment or two both officers sat silent again, listening to the roll of awful menace. Then von Waldhofer shouted an order to the telephonist. "Get through to the observation officer!" Almost immediately the orderly called out: "Speaking, Herr Hauptmann!" Von Waldhofer picked up the receiver. "What is happening?" "The bombardment is continuing," came the reply. "Much damage is being done to the trenches. Some sectors are almost obliterated. My wire has already been cut twice." "No infantry attack?" "Not yet. This is evidently preparatory." "Keep me informed," said von Waldhofer, and put down the receiver. He turned to Eberstein. "Well, we shall soon see." "There will be nothing," replied the lieutenant with his contemptuous laugh. "I should like to bet on it. If there were a patent way of breaking down trench lines, it would not be the Englanders who invented it. It would be we Germans!----" "Hush!" said von Waldhofer. "Listen!" The roll of the hostile artillery ceased as though controlled by a single volition, remained silent for a few seconds and then, with one thunder-surge of sound, recommenced. "The barrage has lifted!" cried von Waldhofer. He raised his voice to be heard by the Oberfeldwebel who waited megaphone in hand, his legs visible halfway down the dug-out steps. "All ready, sergeant-major?" "All ready, Herr Hauptmann," replied the tranquil voice of the N.C.O. The telephone bell rang again in the dug-out. "Message from observation officer!" proclaimed the orderly. Von Waldhofer snatched up the instrument. "Yes?" "_Barrage!_" "Fire!" shouted von Waldhofer to the Oberfeldwebel. Eberstein looked at his watch. The hour was 7.20. As though the commanding officer had pressed an electric firing-button, the four heavy crashes of his guns followed, merging into each other, renewed in a never-ending chain of detonations as fast as the crews could load, relay and fire. A constant stream of 4.2" shells was rushing from the battery to fall in a narrow area at the predetermined range. But loud as were the violent concussions of the guns close at hand, they were but one element in the chaos of frenzied sound that had leaped from the whole countryside at the moment of their first report. Every German battery was firing at its maximum intensity. On the background of the dull continuance of the English guns danced the rapid reports of the quick-firers at full pressure of urgency, and surged ponderously the gruff double-roar of the howitzers, and the sharper, louder crash of the heavies, blended without a moment's interval into one unceasing peal. The rifle-fire from the trenches was inaudible, swallowed up. Von Waldhofer sat with one telephone receiver pressed to his ear. Eberstein picked up the other. They heard the observation officer's voice, faintly. "What?" shouted von Waldhofer into the instrument.