But the guns, and as far as possible the men, were replaced, and the weight of fire kept up. The men worked in shifts, half of them keeping the guns going while the others ate and rested, and slept the sleep of utter exhaustion in shell-holes near the guns, which continued to bang in running bursts of “battery fire,” or crash out in ear-splitting and ground-shaking four-gun salvos within a dozen or two yards of the sleepers’ heads. The sheer physical labour was cruelly exhausting—the carrying and handling of the shells, the effort to improvise sandbag and broken timber “platforms” under the gun wheels to keep them from sinking in the soft ground, even the mere walking or moving about ankle deep in the sea of sticky mud that surrounded the guns and clung in heavy clogging lumps to feet and legs. But the mental strain must have been even worse in the past six days and nights of constant heavy firing, and of suffering under fire. Now on this, the sixth and last day of the preparation, the rate of fire along the whole line was worked up to an appalling pitch of violence. The line of the advanced field positions ran in a narrow and irregular belt, at few points more than a couple of thousand yards from the enemy line; the batteries were so closely placed that the left flank gun of one was bare yards from the right flank gun of the next, and in some groups were ranged in double and triple tiers. Up and down this line for miles the guns poured out shells as hard as they could go. Every now and again the enemy artillery would attempt a reply, and a squall of shells would shriek and whistle and crash down on some part or other of our guns’ line, catching a few men here, killing a handful there, smashing or overturning a gun elsewhere—but never stopping or even slacking the tornado of fire poured out by the British line. Each battery had a set rate of fire to maintain, a fixed number of rounds to place on detailed targets; and badly or lightly mauled or untouched, as might be, each one performed its appointed task. In any battery which had lost many officers and men only a constant tremendous effort kept the guns going. The men relieved from their turn at the guns crawled to the craters, where they had slung a ground sheet or two for shelter from the rain, or had scooped a shallow niche in the side, ate their bully and biscuit, stretched their cramped muscles, crept into their wet lairs, wrapped themselves in wet blankets or coats, curled up and slept themselves into a fresh set of cramps. They were lucky if they had their spell off in undisturbed sleep; most times they were turned out, once, twice, or thrice, to help unload the pack mules which brought up fresh supplies of shells, and man-handle the rounds up from the nearest points the mules could approach over the welter of muddy ground so pitted and cratered that even a mule could not pass over it.