When the cavalry charged at Equancourt, a body of British infantry, who had come on to the ground six hours earlier than they need have done, in order (as they said) not to miss the show, cheered them on with the wildest enthusiasm. "Look at those beggars," shouted one man as the cavalry swept past; "that's the way to take a village. No blighted bombs for them, and hell for leather all the way!" It was a difficult operation, this taking of Equancourt, and was carried out in the best cavalry style according to the old traditions. The village and a little wood in the front of it were held by Germans with machine-guns, and another village to the right named Sorel was defended in the same way, and commanded the field of fire before Equancourt. The cavalry had two spurs of ground in front of them divided by two narrow gullies, or re-entrants. One gully ran straight to the village of Equancourt, but was directly in front of the German machine-gun emplacements. The other gully was to the right, and it was through this that the cavalry rode, sweeping round in a curve to Equancourt. Before their charge of two parties, a third party was posted on the left on rising ground, and swept the wood below Equancourt with machine-gun fire, and a smaller body of cavalry to the right occupied the attention of the enemy in Sorel in the same way. Then the two attacking parties were launched, and rode hard at a pace of twenty-three miles an hour. The enemy did not stand. After a few bursts of machine-gun fire, which only hit a few of our mounted men, they fled behind the shelter of a railway embankment beyond the village, and most of them escaped. All this is an interlude between greater and grimmer things. We have not yet come to the period of real open warfare, but have only passed over a wide belt of No Man's Land: and the fantasy of cavalry skirmishes and wandering Germans and civilians greeting us with outstretched hands from ruined villages will soon be closed by the wire and walls of the Hindenburg line, where once again the old fortress and siege warfare will begin, unless we have the luck to turn it or break through before the Siegfried divisions have finished their fortifications. PART III THE BATTLE OF ARRAS I ARRAS AND THE VIMY RIDGE APRIL 9 To-day at dawn our armies began a battle which, if Fate has any kindness for the world, may be the beginning of the last great battles of the war. Our troops attacked on a wide front including the Vimy Ridge--that grim hill which dominates the plain of Douai and the coalfields of Lens--and the German positions around Arras. In spite of bad fortune in the weather at the beginning of the day, so bad that there was no visibility for the airmen, and our men had to struggle forward in a heavy rain-storm, the first attacks have been successful, and the enemy has lost much ground, falling back in retreat to strong rear-guard lines where he is now fighting desperately.