"The passages in which we were advancing were 18 feet deep, and often 24 feet and more. The water was sweating through in all directions, and the sickly smell was unbearable. Imagine, too, that for three weeks we were not able to get rid of the dead bodies, amongst which we had to live night and day! One burrow, 120 feet long, took us thirteen days of ceaseless fighting to conquer entirely. The Germans had placed barricades, trap doors, and traps of all kinds in it. When we stumbled we ran the risk of being pierced by bayonets hidden in holes lightly covered with earth. And all this went on in almost complete darkness. We had to use pocket electric lamps and advance with the utmost caution." The first stage of the Battle of Artois may be said to have ended with the capture of Neuville St. Vaast on 8th June. The French had done splendidly, though they had not yet won a decisive success. The German losses during the terrible month of May cannot have been less than 60,000, and the French had suffered almost as severely. They had advanced with but few casualties; it was in the hand-to-hand fighting in the villages and against the forts that so many of their men fell. The victory was due largely to the French artillery, but the infantry did more than its fair share. It had shown itself as full of fiery courage and dashing bravery as in the great days of Napoleon. [Footnote 39: According to the old classical story, there was in Crete a building constructed for King Minos, in which dwelt the terrible beast known as the Minotaur. This building, which was known as the Labyrinth, contained many winding passages, arranged in such a fashion that a way out was most difficult to find.] CHAPTER XXXI. THE BATTLE OF FESTUBERT. Suppose for a moment that, in the first week of May, a British soldier in the captured village of Neuve Chapelle is looking towards the German lines. Away to the north-east he sees a long ridge crowned by the village of Aubers. He gazes upon this ridge with eyes of desire, and recalls the many determined but, so far, fruitless efforts which the British army has made to capture it. He remembers that, as far back as October 17, 1914, the red-roofed village in the distance was in British hands, and that two days later the 2nd Royal Irish, by storming the hamlet of Le Pilly,[40] attained our "farthest east." But our grasp of the ridge was very feeble; it could not be held, and by mid-November we had fallen back behind the ruins amidst which our soldier now stands. The coveted position was as far off as ever.