The Army had been temporarily exhausted by its extreme efforts and the consequent losses, but was greatly buoyed up by the certainty that with their excellent artillery and their predominant air service they were inflicting more punishment than they were receiving. Steadily from week to week the tale of prisoners and of captured guns had been growing, the British and the French keeping curiously level in the numbers of their trophies. Fresh divisions, ardent for battle, were streaming down from the Northern line, while old divisions, already badly hammered, filled up rapidly with eager drafts, and were battle-worthy once again in a period which would have been pronounced absolutely impossible by any military critic before the War. All the rearward {236} villages were choked with the supports. There was rumour also of some new agency to be used, and wondrous stories were whispered as to its nature and its powers. The men were in high heart, therefore, and by the middle of September Rawlinson's Fourth Army, which now included three corps, was ready to spring forward once again. The main German line was miles behind them, and the headquarters of British brigades and divisions now nested comfortably in those commodious dug-outs which two years of unremitting German labour had constructed--monuments for many a year to come of their industry and of their failure. It was realised that the obstacles in front, however formidable, could not possibly be so difficult as those which had already been surmounted; and yet our aeroplanes were able to report that the whole country was still slashed across and across in a fanciful lacework of intricate patterns in which fire, support, and communication trenches formed one great network of defence.