Away to the east the faint light of a gray and sullen day now began to appear. The heavy clouds hung low in the sky, and ahead the mist shrouded the view. Before long the Germans knew that a big attack was preparing, but they took no steps to meet it. Our artillery now began to boom; "ranging shots" were being fired, but soon all was silent again. On the stroke of 7.30 some 350 guns suddenly spoke with an overpowering din that racked the brain and split the ears. The terrific roar was incessant, and the discharges were so rapid that it seemed as if they came from a gigantic machine gun. The very earth shook as though struck by Thor's[28] hammer. The first shells that hit the German position raised huge clouds of smoke and dust, and nothing could be seen but the green fumes of lyddite and the spouting columns of red earth. Barbed-wire entanglements were blown into a myriad fragments, parapets crumbled like sand castles, and trenches on which men had worked for months were flung into shapeless ruin. Bodies of mangled men were hurled high into the air, and ghastly fragments were blown back into the British lines. Four shells were hurled on every yard of the German trenches, and more ammunition was used in the thirty-five minutes during which the bombardment lasted than in a year and a half of the South African War. Long before the awful cannonade ended the German trenches had ceased to exist. They were reduced to a welter of earth and dust. While the bombardment lasted our troops could walk outside their trenches in safety, for the Germans were so "pinned to the ground" that those of them who remained alive dared not lift their heads. From behind the ragged clouds in the sky where the aeroplanes were sailing the sun now began to shine, making still darker the black pall that hung over the German position, and flashing back from the rows of gleaming bayonets in the British trenches. At five minutes to eight our gunners lengthened their fuses, and shells began to fall fast and furiously on the village itself. Some of the houses were seen to leap into the air. Columns of dust like the sand spouts of the desert sprang up; trees went down like wheat before a sickle; bricks and stones fell in torrents. Then came the great moment. Whistles blew; our men swarmed over the parapets and rushed towards the German trenches. [Illustration: The Rifle Brigade racing headlong through the Ruins of Neuve Chapelle during the Attack on the Village. (_From the picture by Christopher Clark. By permission of The Sphere._)