The road to Bapaume, to the north, is almost all free. From to-day begins, on this side, the siege of that town, which the Germans have converted into a stronghold. All over the plain the English are lighting camp-fires: and in perfect safety, since the enemy's line has retired about 1-1/2 miles. The skirl of bagpipes, the scream of fifes, the choruses of the men, rise into the foggy night. It proves the truth of the saying: "To live truly is to live perilously." Victory! And the battle goes on. CHAPTER II. IN FRONT OF THE MUNICH TRENCH. Beaumont-Hamel, 15th November. That two-hour tramp through a few kilometres of trenches was a heart-breaking business. We floundered through holes, we were swallowed up in bogs, while the mud that fell from the parapets gradually spread itself over our oilskins. A steel helmet becomes wonderfully heavy after an hour or so, and a dizzy headache soon tormented us, from the constant right-angled turns which we were obliged to make, like so many slaves at a cornmill. But what a reward has been ours since our arrival! Here we are, seated at the horizontal loophole of a quite new observation post, in the front line, in the very trench from which, the day before yesterday, the English launched their attack. In front, towards the left, is Beaumont-Hamel. Out of this heap of rubbish start up three-cornered bits of wall, which give to these ruins the look of a dwarf village. On the hillside a mangled copse looks like those guileless charcoal strokes which one sees in a child's drawing. To the right--Beaucourt. Here the ruin is absolute. I have hunted in vain for any trace of man's handiwork. Even the dust of the stones has blown away. A few hundred yards ahead of us the men have just rushed forward. With rifles held high they spring from the parapet into the open. They look like an army of ants, that now moves along in a stream, now closes together like a vice, now marks time, now plunges into vast funnels, and again, at racing speed, surges up the gentle slope. The barbed-wire entanglements cover acres of ground; they are the eleventh line of the German defences. In many places the wires are so closely bunched together that the balls cannot pass through them. At least a brigade is engaged. One can see the company leaders quite plainly. The shells are bursting everywhere, throwing up furious fountains of black smoke with which bits of earth and iron are mingled. The rolling clouds of the shrapnel seem to frame one regiment. Ah! Bad luck! That one was well timed which burst over there on the right, just above the company that was lying down there. The damage must have been serious. Men lie on the ground who will never pick themselves up again. A cloud, the colour of absinthe, hangs sullenly over those little khaki spots.