The colonel was very willing. He would go with us himself. I conquered a strong desire to stand with the telephone building between me and the German lines, now so near, and looked about. A French aëroplane was overhead, but there was little bustle and activity along the road. It is a curious fact in this war that the nearer one is to the front the quieter things become. Three or four miles behind there is bustle and movement. A mile behind, and only an occasional dispatch rider, a few men mending roads, an officer's car, a few horses tethered in a wood, a broken gun carriage, a horse being shod behind a wall, a soldier on a lookout platform in a tree, thickets and hedges that on occasion spout fire and death--that is the country round Ypres and just behind the line, in daylight. We were between Ypres and the Allied line, in that arc which the Germans are, as I write, trying so hard to break through. The papers say that they are shelling Ypres and that it is burning. They were shelling it that day also. But now, as then, I cannot believe it is burning. There was nothing left to burn. While arrangements were being made to visit the batteries, Lieutenant Puaux explained to me a method they had established at that point for measuring the altitude of hostile aëroplanes for the guns. "At some anti-aircfaft batteries," he explained, "they have the telemeter for that purpose. But here there is none. So they use the system of _visée laterale_, or side sight, literally." He explained it all carefully to me. I understood it at the time, I think. I remember saying it was perfectly clear, and a child could do it, and a number of other things. But the system of _visée laterale_ has gone into that part of my mind which contains the Latin irregular verbs, harmonies, the catechism and answers to riddles. There is a curious feeling that comes with the firing of a large battery at an unseen enemy. One moment the air is still; there is a peaceful plain round. The sun shines, and heavy cart horses, drawing a wagon filled with stones for repairing a road, are moving forward steadily, their heads down, their feet sinking deep in the mud. The next moment hell breaks loose. The great guns stand with smoking jaws. The message of death has gone forth. Over beyond the field and that narrow line of trees, what has happened? A great noise, the furious recoiling of the guns, an upcurling of smoke--that is the firing of a battery. But over there, perhaps, one man, or twenty, or fifty men, lying still. So I required assurance that this battery was not being fired for me. I had no morbid curiosity as to batteries. One of the officers assured me that I need have no concern. Though they were firing earlier than had been intended, a German battery had been located and it was their instructions to disable it. The battery had been well concealed. "No German aëroplane has as yet discovered it," explained the officer in charge.