The whole thing was indescribable—a terrific spectacle, a stupendous symphony of sound. The devil-artist who had staged it was a master, in comparison with whom all other artists of the sublime and terrible were babies. The roar of the guns was beyond clamour, it was an immense rhythmic harmony, a super-jazz of tremendous drums, a ride of the Walkyrie played by three thousand cannon. The intense rattle of the machine-guns played a minor motif of terror. It was too dark to see the attacking troops, but Winterbourne thought with agony how every one of those dreadful vibrations of sound meant death or mutilation. He thought of the ragged lines of British troops stumbling forward in smoke and flame and a chaos of sound, crumbling away before the German protective barrage and the reserve line machine-guns. He thought of the German Front lines, already obliterated under that ruthless tempest of explosions and flying metal. Nothing could live within the area of that storm except by a miraculous hazard. Already in this first half hour of bombardment hundreds upon hundreds of men would have been violently slain, smashed, torn, gouged, crushed, mutilated. The colossal harmony seemed to roar louder as the drum-fire barrage lifted from the Front line to the Reserve. The battle was begun. They would be mopping-up soon—throwing bombs and explosives down the dug-out entrances on the men cowering inside. The German heavies were pounding M—— with their shells, smashing at the communication trenches and cross-roads, hurling masses of metal at their own ruined village. Winterbourne saw the half-ruined factory chimney totter and crash to the ground. Two shells pitched on either side of him, and flung earth, stones and broken bricks all round him. He turned and ran back to his cellar, stumbling over shell-holes. He saw an isolated house disappear in the united explosion of two huge shells. He clutched his hands together as he ran, with tears in his eyes. [ X ] Winterbourne found the other runners buckling up their packs and fastening their equipment with that febrile haste which comes with great excitement. Even in the cellar the roar of the artillery made it necessary for them almost to shout to each other. “What are the orders?” “Stand by in fighting order, ready to move off at once. Dump packs outside billets.”