"We occupy the left flank trench, and command the position. But, what a fight; it was worse than Loos." Then suddenly, "What are _you_ doing here?" "I am taking kinema pictures!" I said. The look of amazement on his face was eloquent of his thoughts. "Doing _what_?" he asked. "I am taking kinema pictures," I repeated. "Well I'm damned," were his exact words. "I never thought you fellows existed. I've always thought war pictures were fakes, but--well--now I know different," and giving me a hearty shake of the hand he went on his way. Time was now drawing near for my work to begin. Taking the camera to the selected point in the front line, which, luckily, was just on the left of the fighting area, I took my bearings by the aid of a compass. Fixing up a tripod in such close quarters was very difficult. I stretched an empty sandbag on a piece of wire, cut a hole in it and hung it on the front of the camera in such a position that the lens projected through the hole. The sandbag stretched far enough on either side to shelter my hands, especially the right one, which operated the machine. I was now ready. I had to risk the attentions of the snipers; it was unavoidable. Little by little I raised the camera. It was now high enough up, and ramming some sand against the tripod legs, I waited. Had the Bosche seen it? Three more minutes, then the mine. One minute went by; no shots! Another minute went by. A bullet flew over my head. Immediately afterwards another buried itself in the parapet, then another. Surely they would hit it! Heavens how that last minute dragged! To be absolutely sure of getting the mine from the very beginning, I decided to start exposing a minute before time. It had to be done; reaching up, I started to expose. Another and another bullet flew by. Then the thing happened which I had been dreading. The Bosche opened a machine-gun on me. At that moment there was a violent convulsion of the ground, and with a tremendous explosion the mine went up. It seemed as if the whole earth in front of us had been lifted bodily hundreds of feet in the air. Showers of bombs exploded, showing that it had been well under the German position. Then with a mighty roar the earth and débris fell back upon itself, forming a crater about 150 feet across. Would our men rush the crater and occupy it? On that chance, I kept turning the handle. The smoke subsided; nothing else happened. The show was over. No, not quite; for as I hurriedly took down the camera, I evidently put my head up a little too high. There was a crack, and a shriek near my head, and my service cap was whisked off. The whole thing happened like a flash of lightning. I dropped into the bottom of the trench and picked up my cap. There, through the soft part of it, just above the peak, were two holes where a bullet had passed through. One inch nearer and it would have been through my head. Can you realise what my thoughts were at that precise moment? CHAPTER IX