Our artillery replied to the German barrage as well as it might; but no gunner or machine gunner or observer could see fifty yards before him. Under the cloak of the mist the vanguards of the enemy were everywhere cutting the wire and filtering between the Allied strongholds. The infantry attack was timed differently along the front, in parts beginning as early as eight o’clock, but by ten in the morning it was general. The garrisons of the outposts, beaten to the ground by the bombardment and struggling amid clouds of gas, were in desperate case. In the thick weather the enemy was beyond the places where the cross-fire of machine guns might have checked him long before the redoubts were aware of his presence. The first thing which most of the outposts knew was that the Germans were in their rear, and they were overwhelmed before they could send back warning. Even when they had longer notice, the S.O.S. signals were everywhere blanketed by the fog. Presently the bulk of the outpost line was gone, and the enemy was well into our forward zone. There the line of resistance held on gallantly for hours; and long after the main battle had swept beyond it, messages continued to be received from odd posts, until that silence came which meant destruction. The havoc wrought among our communications kept the battle zone in the dark as to what was happening in front. Often, too, in those mad hours of fog, our guns received their first news of the assault from the appearance of German infantry on flank and rear. A little after eleven the brume lightened, and it was possible to see something of the landscape to the east. With the lightening came the German airplanes, flying low to attack with machine guns our troops and batteries. The men in the battle zone waited with anxious hearts till the shock of the assault should reach them. [Illustration: THE SOMME RETREAT.]