This will give you some idea of the way the ground was interlaced with subterranean passages, and this, mind you, was only one tunnel of many. It was quite pleasant to breathe comparatively fresh air again after the foul atmosphere down below. Bosche was more lively with his shell-fire and they were coming much too near to be pleasant. I fixed up my machine and filmed several very good bursts near some guns. He was evidently shooting blind, or by the map, for they dropped anywhere but near their objectives. Anyway it was his shoot and it was not up to us to correct him. CHAPTER XXV THE EVE OF GREAT EVENTS A Choppy Cross-Channel Trip--I Indulge in a Reverie--And Try to Peer Into the Future--At Headquarters Again--Trying to Cross the River Somme on an Improvised Raft--In Peronne After the German Evacuation--A Specimen of Hunnish "Kultur." Since I left France in December many changes had taken place; tremendous preparations for the next great offensive were in progress. We shall now see the results of all our hard and bloody work, which began on the Somme on July 1st, 1916. I think I can safely say that we have never relaxed our offensive for a single day. Granted the great pressure has not been kept up, but in proportion to the weather conditions the push has been driven home relentlessly and ground won foot by foot, yard by yard, until, in February, 1917, the Germans retired behind their Bapaume defences. Just how far they are going back one cannot decide. The fact remains that the enemy is falling back, not for strategical reasons, as he is so anxious for his people and neutrals to believe, but because he is forced to by the superiority of our troops and our dominating gun-power. The beginning of the end is at hand, the eve of great events is here; the results of this year's fighting will decide the future peace of the world, the triumph of Christianity over barbarity, of God over the devil. I received instructions to proceed again to France. "The capture of Bapaume is imminent, you must certainly obtain that," I was told, "and add another to your list of successes." So I left by the midday boat-train; the usual crowds were there to see their friends off. A descriptive writer could fill a volume with impressions gathered on the station platform an hour before the train starts. Scenes of pathos and assumed joy; of strong men and women stifling their emotions with a stubbornness that would do justice to the martyrdom of the Early Christians in the arenas of Rome.