This game being played along the whole front has, of course, been likened to chess, with guns and men as pieces. I had in mind the dummy actors and dummy scenery with which stage managers try out their acts, only in this instance there was never any rehearsal on the actual stage with the actual scenery unless a first attack had failed, as the Germans will not permit such liberties except under machine gun fire. A call or two came over the telephone about some minor details, the principal ones being already settled. "It's time to go," he said finally. The corps commander was downstairs in the dining-room comfortably smoking his pipe after tea. There would be nothing for him to do until news of the attack had been received. "I hope you will see a good show," he remarked, by way of _au revoir_. How earnestly he hoped it there is no use of mentioning here. It is taken for granted. Carefully thought out plans backed by hundreds of guns and the lives of men at stake--and against the Thiepval fortifications! "Yes, we'll make it nicely," concluded Howell, as we went down the steps. A man used to motoring ten miles to catch the nine-thirty to town could not have been more certain of the disposal of his time than this soldier on the way to an attack. His car which was waiting had a right of way up to front such as is enjoyed only by the manager of the works on his own premises. Of course he paid no attention to the sign, "This road is shelled; closed to vehicles," at the beginning of a stretch of road which looked unused and desolate. "A car in front of me here the other day received a direct hit from a 'krump,' and car and passengers practically disappeared before my eyes," he remarked, without further dwelling on the incident; for the Germans were, in turn, irritated with the insistence of these stubborn British that they could take Thiepval. Three prisoners in the barbed-wire inclosure that we passed looked lonely. They must have been picked up in a little bombing affair in a sap. "I think that they will have plenty of companions this evening," said Howell. "How they will enjoy their dinner!" He smiled in recollection as did I of that familiar sight of prisoners eating. Nothing excites hunger like a battle or gives such zest to appetite as knowledge that you are out of danger. I know that it is true and so does everybody at the front.