Making our way again to the main road I stood by some ruins and looked away in the distance where the Germans had disappeared. What a difference. Here were green fields, gorgeous woods, hills, and dales with winding roads sweeping away out of sight. It reminded me of the feeling Moses must have experienced when he looked upon the Promised Land. Here were no shell-torn fields, no woods beaten out of all semblance to anything, no earth upon which thousands of men had poured out their blood; but, here in front of us, a veritable heaven. "Come along," I said, "let's explore. If there are any Bosches about they'll soon let us know of their presence. Let's get on to that other ridge; the Somme river should be there somewhere." We left the village and cautiously followed the road down one hill and up the next. The Germans had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed them up. Not a soul was to be seen; we might have been strolling on the Surrey hills! I gradually reached the brow of the next ridge. The sight which met my eyes was the most stimulating one I had ever seen from a picture point of view. There, in front of us, at a distance of six hundred yards, was the river Somme--the name which will go down to history as the most momentous in this the bloodiest war the world has ever known. There it glistened, winding its way north and south like a silver snake. "Come along," I said, "I shall get the first picture of the Somme," and we raced away down the road. In calmer moments at home I have admitted that we were mad. Nobody in their right senses would have done such a thing as to rush headlong into country which might have been thick with enemy snipers and machine-guns. But the quietness of the grave reigned--not a rifle-shot disturbed the silence. Evidence of the German retreat met our gaze as we ran down the road. On either side were discarded material and, in a quarry on the left, a German Red Cross sign was stuck up on a post, and several dug-outs were burning--smoke was pouring up from below, showing that the Hun was destroying everything. I was brought to a standstill at the sight of a mass of wreckage near the river. Smoke was issuing from it. I looked on my map and saw that it was the village of Brie; a small section was this side of the river, but the main part was on the other side. The whole place had been completely destroyed, partly, I ultimately found out, by our gun-fire, and the remainder burnt or blown up by the Germans. The river had developed into a swampy marsh; in fact it was very difficult to say precisely where the river and canal finished and the marshes began. I again got my camera into action and filmed, for the first time, the Somme river which was directly in our line of advance.