That village was a few miles further on. As I went along the straight, bare road, with stubble upon either side, I thought the sound of firing got louder; but then, again, it would diminish, as the batteries took a further and a further position in their advance. It was great fun, this sham action, with its crescent of advancing fire and one's self in the centre of the curve. At the next village I had come across the arteries of the movement. By one road provisionment was going off to the right; by another two men with messages, one a Hussar on horseback, the other a Reservist upon a bicycle, went by me very quickly. Then from behind some high trees in a churchyard there popped out a lot of little Engineers, who were rolling a great roll of wire along. So I went onwards; and at last I came to a cleft just before the left bank of the Sioule. This cleft appeared deserted: there was brushwood on its sides and a tiny stream running through it. On the ridge beyond were the roofs of a village. The firing of the pieces was now quite close and near. They were a little further than the houses of the hamlet, doubtless in some flat field where the position was favourable to them. Down that cleft I went, and in its hollow I saw the first post, but as yet nothing more. Then when I got to the top of the opposing ridge I found the whole of the 38th lolling under the cover of the road bank. From below you would have said there were no men at all. The guns were right up beyond the line, firing away. I went up past the linesmen till I found the guns.