Directly in front of him the bare ground with many minor undulations rose steadily to the shattered silhouette of the Bois de Foureaux on the skyline. But no longer was the view clear as when he last had gazed on it. Over all lay a haze which the early morning sun was powerless to penetrate. In the foreground and wide to right and left in the middle distance spurted and twinkled the primrose flashes of the guns, more rapidly multiplied than any eye could count. On the ridge the smoke lay thick, bellying in dark masses over the tree-stumps of the wood, poised on the horizon in tall, heavy-headed columns like elm trees in full foliage. In the air long bands of white shrapnel smoke reached out and clung to each other in a lazy drift, while among them the large dead-black bursts of heavy high-explosive shrapnel appeared suddenly, darted a head from the round nucleus and then unfolded themselves slowly and snakily earthward. Between him and the ridge the whole wide amphitheatre was being thickly sown with English shells. Near and far the smoke-columns shot incessantly into the air. Over the road from Flers to the Bois de Delville, which crossed his view at right angles, the white shrapnel puffs clustered in ever-renewed groups. Over all, English aeroplanes in scores flitted to and fro, daringly low yet apparently unchallenged. No longer did this arena appear untenanted. In every part there was movement and confusion of Lilliputian figures. Far away three tiny ammunition wagons raced towards a battery. Closer at hand, grey-clad infantry dashed in sections along the shell-swept road from Flers. They tugged low bomb-carts on long hand-ropes. He knew, subconsciously, that they were going to reinforce the great trench-line that stretched east and west from Martinpuich to Lesboeufs. Further afield other bands of grey midgets, scarcely visible, were rushing forward. Everywhere from the rim of battle-pressure grey figures were filtering in ragged streams down towards the lower ground. A long way off, on that rim, his glasses revealed a nodal point of confusion. He focussed on it. There were tiny grey figures grouped, in quick movement to and fro. Little smoke-dots were all round them. Then the confusion cleared. He saw darker figures, running forward, the twinkle of sun on a distant bayonet. For a moment he held them under view anxiously. Then with an impatient movement he swept his glasses round. Not there was the target that he sought. Suddenly he arrested his sweep. To his left, much closer to him than he had been looking, a field battery topped a little rise, retiring at full gallop among a welter of shell-smoke. It passed down below his vision. His glasses remained steadily focussed on the rise over which it had come, fascinated by the abnormality, expectant of the cause.