For a mile the going was easy, the road-bed straight away toward the trenches; and the footing beneath five or six inches of mud was firm. At "Dead Man's Curve," a bad spot which bends out from behind a great ammunition-dump and passes between batteries on into another ruined village, we took a short cut across the field. The mud at the bend was red, and the road was filled with blood; an empty supply-wagon had been caught there earlier in the morning. The two men on the driver's seat and all of the mules had been killed. For five hundred yards we continued across the shell-ploughed field; now and then we were forced to turn out of the direct path to avoid shell-holes close together; several times I found as many as three small craters with rim touching rim. The firing continued heavy, and the moaning missiles passed one another high above our heads. There were explosions half a mile away, and the surface of the earth was churned with fury; but no shells dropped near. We entered the communication-trench at the far edge of the great military road that at this particular point parallels the first line of fifteen miles. It runs directly in front of the last heavy batteries, and to a height of twenty feet is carefully camouflaged with branches and painted canvas. The camouflage does not disguise the location of the road itself; but it does hide the movements of troops, munitions, and supplies from the enemy observers, who here look down upon our lines from a famous mountain which towers nine hundred feet above our position. The morning was cloudy; mist was in the air, and a little later it began to snow. We caught glimpses now and then of another ruined village, the battalion headquarters (a kilometer from the head of the communicating trench), where we reported before going on to the most advanced positions. Presently we met a lieutenant coming out. He was smiling, and without being asked for information told us that the enemy had come over in force with shock troops after shelling the lines for twelve hundred meters on either side of the eight-hundred-meter front which bore the full weight of the infantry attack. He gave us no details; but, as he hurried on, he assured us that "the boys brought away the bacon." We reported to the major on reaching headquarters, and learned from him that the company we had planned to serve that morning had been very "busy"; that it was digging itself out, reopening the trenches after the intense bombardment, clearing away the dead, looking after the wounded; and that he would prefer to have these supplies taken into Company K, where things were in better order. He spoke with pardonable pride when he informed us that already the men at the most advanced listening-posts had been served with food and red-hot coffee. We began to understand the heavy firing of the morning. Our guns had been supporting the infantry, and German guns had been trying to silence them.