The Corporal was in rather happy mood over the surrender and the prospect of advancing without opposition. “Where is it?” he retorted. “Like ’is bloomin’ cheek askin’. You tell ’im that _’is_ final objective is Donington ‘All—an’ I wish ours was ’alf as pleasant. Ours ain’t far this time, but we’re off now to take it accordin’ to attack orders an’ time-table, like we always does. An’ we’ll do it just the same fashion—’cos ’e knows us an’ we knows ’im, an’ knows ’e don’t ask wot we can’t do—when the day comes that good old ’Aig draws ’is blue-black line beyond its back doors an’ tells us the final objective is Berlin.” XIX ARTILLERY PREPARATION IT was the sixth day of the “artillery preparation” for the attack. During the past six days the dispatches on both sides had remarked vaguely that there was “artillery activity,” or “intense fire,” or “occasional increase to drum fire.” These phrases may not convey much to the average dispatch reader, and indeed it is only the Gunners, and especially the Field Batteries in the front gun-line, who understand their meaning to the full. They had here no picked “battery positions,” because they had been pushed up on to captured ground which they themselves in a previous attack had helped churn to a muddy shell-wrecked wilderness, had blasted bare of any semblance of cover or protection. The batteries were simply planted down in a long line in the open, or at best had the guns sunk a foot or two in shallow pits made by spading out the connecting rims of a group of shell-holes. The gunners, whether serving at the guns or taking their turn of rest, were just as open and exposed as the guns. The gun shields gave a little protection from forward fire of bullets, shrapnel, or splinters, but none from the downward, side, or backward blast of high-explosive shells. There was no cover or protection for guns or men simply because there had been no time or men to spare for “digging in.” The field guns had been pushed up to their present position just as quickly as the soft ground would allow after the last advance, and since then had been kept going night and day, bringing up and stacking piles of shells and still keeping up a heavy fire. The return fire from the Germans was spasmodic, and not to be compared in volume to ours, and yet against ranks and rows of guns in the bare open it could not fail to be damaging, and a good few of the batteries lost guns smashed and many men and officers killed and wounded.