The mist cleared, revealing the dark pylons of Loos, twin spidery towers, black against the gray, a tiny blurr of high houses that was City Saint Élie, the great wheeled pit-head of Fosse Eight. It still lacked half-an-hour to “zero”; Peter wandered round to the back of the Fosse. Men were stirring round the gun-pits below. A motor skirled the dust on the road where Beuvry towers stood out from the plain. . . . “Colonel to speak to you, sir,” announced Seabright, appearing suddenly at his elbow. Peter ran back to the telephone. “How’s the light?” “Middling, sir. And no wind yet.” Peter lit another cigar; looked at his watch. A quarter of an hour yet. He was not in the least excited. It all seemed dull—dull beyond belief. . . . Ten minutes. . . . Still, it would be a show worth watching. . . . Seven. . . . What was the colour of Seventh’s Division’s flag—red and blue—diagonal. . . . Five minutes more. . . . His pulse quickened a beat. . . . Two minutes. . . . Decidedly, a show not to miss. . . . One minute. . . . He knelt down to be near the telephone. . . . Cr-rack! Looking down, Peter saw a blue flash, a smoke puff among the trees round “Our Lady of Consolation.” Simultaneously the whole plain erupted. Here, there, everywhere, yellow and blue, the hidden pits flamed and screamed. Thin smoke rose from them; drifted _back_ in a faint breeze. (“Hope to God, we’re not going to use our gas,” thought Peter.) Behind him, he heard the sharp clang of French heavies; the deep note of Granny, the huge howitzer in Sailly La Bourse. He looked towards the trenches; saw single shrapnel bursting orange to fleecy puffs. The puffs blended to a sea of white, flooding out the trenches. It was as though some invisible hand had poured an enormous wave of milk across the near horizon. And out of the wave spouted great heaving whorls of rusty smoke; staining it. And beyond, he could see huge shells striking at the foot of the spidery towers; at the reeling pit-head; at the high houses of City Saint Élie. Smoke pillars lifted to the sky, quartering the landscape. . . . And always the voice of the guns grew hoarser in the plain below; always the scream of their flighting shells wailed across the sky. . . . “Colonel to speak to you, sir.” Eyes on the plain, Peter took the receiver. “Are the Boche replying?” “No, sir. Unless they’re shelling our front line. I can’t see much except smoke.” “Naturally. They lift in ten minutes.” Still it went on below. Bark of eighteen pounder. Sharp double crack of four-point-seven. Screech and clang of French heavies. Deep boom of Granny far away in rear. Peter swept the sky with his glasses; saw the pit-head tottering above the smoke. Why didn’t they knock it out? Short! Short again! . . . He looked down towards the trenches. The white wave had turned gray. . . . Sombrely the dawn increased. In another minute, the infantry would go over.