It was not till next morning that we found where we were. Tremendous, ear-splitting crashing of artillery was shaking the very ground under our feet. Our own artillery at this time was entirely too inadequate to suitably answer the thunderous message of the enemy. To give some idea of the odds against us in those days, and how we were out-gunned, it is only fair to say to the people who were so ready to criticize the Allies that, apart from the wonderful French seventy-five millimeter guns, our artillery was practically _non est_. The Germans had guns ranging from fifteen pounds to the gigantic howitzers hurling a shell of 1,800 pounds, with an unlimited supply of ammunition. It is a well-known fact that for months the average per gun was about six shells per day. Ah! many a gallant lad might be alive today if he had been properly covered by artillery in those days! And you, dear reader, do not forget, when glorifying in the deeds of America's brave lads, that it is unfair to compare present conditions with those dark days, for in fairness to our dead, it must be said that you in America are learning war from the nations who have paid for their experience by bitter losses. At our back were a few of these sixty-pounders, but, few as they were, the very earth trembled at their detonation, making our ears ring and our heads ache. There is a peculiar metallic ring in the report of these guns which seems to split the drums of one's ears. It causes one to be strangely irritable, and quarrels often took place which otherwise never would have happened, the sole cause of which was shell-shock. The curious sustained roar of fire and answering fire fills a soldier with awe, much the same feeling as of a man viewing a mighty cataract for the first time. The very ground shakes and if a man is standing on a hard road, he will be repeatedly lifted from the ground by the shock. Gun crews suffer from gun-shock and men are often sent down to recover from, not so much the bursting shells of the enemy, as from the effect of the deafening voices of their own pets. This effect is evidenced in a number of different ways, the most common being a trickling of blood from the ear, which in nearly every instance is the prelude for ear trouble for the remainder of one's days. The dazed effect is shown by a shivering and shaking of the entire body, accompanied with a sort of vague, expressionless staring from which men have been known to suffer for months after they have left the firing line. It was my good fortune once to see one of the first of the British heavies to reach the firing line, and to be present when it was fired for the first time. Naturally, we were all agog to see one of these monsters, for we had heard for weeks the rumor that they were coming. It was one fine day in early spring that the first 15.2 rifle rumbled into the village in which we were billeted. I did not see it arrive, but Morgan came to tell me.