When the hour approached for us to start, the artillery fire was so heavy that orders had to be shouted into ears, from man to man. The bombardment was, of course, along a couple of miles of front, so that the Germans would not know where to expect us. At twelve o’clock exactly they began pulling down a section of the parapet so that we wouldn’t have to climb over it, and we were off. CHAPTER III “OVER THE TOP AND GIVE ’EM HELL” As we climbed out of the shelter of our trenches for my first--and, perhaps, my last, I thought--adventure in “No Man’s Land,” the word was passed: “Over the top and give ’em hell!” That is the British Tommies’ battle cry as they charge the enemy and it has often sounded up and down those long lines in western France as the British, Canadian, and Australian soldiers go out to the fight and the death. We were divided into six parties of ten men, each party having separate duties to perform. We crouched forward, moving slowly in single file, stumbling into shell holes and over dead men--some very long dead--and managing to keep in touch with each other though the machine-gun bullets began to drop men almost immediately. Once we were started, we were neither fearful, nor rattled. We had been drilled so long and so carefully that each man knew just what he was to do and he kept right on doing it unless he got hit. To me, it seemed the ground was moving back under me. The first ten yards were the toughest. The thing was perfectly organized. Our last party of ten was composed of signallers. They were paying out wires and carrying telephones to be used during the fifteen minutes of our stay in the German trenches in communicating with our battalion headquarters. A telephone code had been arranged, using the names of our commanding officers as symbols. “Rexford 1” meant, “First prisoners being sent back”; “Rexford 2” meant, “Our first wounded being sent over”; “Rexford 3” meant, “We have entered German trench.” The code was very complete and the signallers had been drilled in it for a week. In case the telephone wires were cut, the signallers were to send messages back by the use of rifle grenades. These are rifle projectiles which carry little metal cylinders to contain written messages, and which burst into flame when they strike the earth, so that they can be easily found at night. The officer in charge of the signallers was to remain at the point of entrance, with his eyes on his watch. It was his duty to sound a warning signal five minutes before the end of our time in the German trenches.