The British Lion was roaring and his growls could be heard all along the Western Front. Many German Generals were stirring uneasily in their large and sumptuously furnished concrete, shell-proof dugouts, kilos behind the German front line trenches, as the ever increasing thundering roar reached their ears. Way down in their hearts there was an unknown dread, perhaps a weakening of faith in the all powerful might of their 'Me und Gott.' "We had a close-up view of the King of Beasts, in his majestic might, as he crouched ready for a spring, his tail furiously and impatiently thumping the ground. In a way he was a sorry-looking specimen; patches of hide were missing, revealing wounds, some of which had entirely healed, while others were still freshly bleeding, exposing the raw flesh. If these scars had been labelled it would have been easy to read, 'Lusitania,' 'Hospital Ships Torpedoed,' 'Zeppelin Murders,' 'Poison Gas,' 'Liquid Fire.' The memory and pain of these atrocities increased his impatience to spring, whetted his appetite to rend and tear. "The British bombardment of the German Lines was on, a bombardment which lasted for eight days and nights. At night the sky was a red glare, as if the world were on fire. Scarlet tongues of flame would suddenly shoot up from the German lines and as suddenly die out, only to be replaced by countless others as thousands of British shells burst in the air or buried themselves in the ground searching out the German Rats in their holes. "Continuous flashes from the British rear paid tribute to the artillerymen, stripped to the waist, sweating and scorched by the breath of their guns, as they fed shells to the iron monsters. Overhead a rushing noise like the passing of an express train, or a moaning sigh through the air meant that the steel messengers of death and vengeance were on their way, on their way to give the Germans a taste of the Hell that they had prepared for others. The earth seemed to heave and crack as if some huge giant had been buried alive and was struggling for the air. This bombardment was the forerunner of the 'Battle of the Somme.' "Atwell and I were alone in the machine gunners' dugout of the support trench, the gun's crew being on duty, in the fire trench. Atwell, a great big lovable fellow, was my mate. We had both been detailed to the Military Police of the Divisional Intelligence Department and were engaged upon 'spy work.' Atwell, although of a naturally cheery disposition, occasionally lapsed into fits of despondency.