The song of the pipes swells out louder, and now the bugles and drums are to give it their support. But before touching their drums, the drummers, with the derision of automata, bring their heels together, throw out their chests, and then, raising their elbows face high, cross the drumsticks behind their necks. Only then may they begin to play. The Scotsman who handles the big drum hits it first on one side and then on the other, and each time whirls his free drumstick like a windmill. He is not perhaps a musical virtuoso, but there can be no question about his ability as a juggler. And now the bandsmen, who have stood, hitherto, motionless in the middle of the village, bestir themselves, and, marking time to their own music, move forwards with a slow and majestic step. The sadness of the music, the gravity of the Scotsmen, the falling night, the homeliness of the place, and a certain indefinable flavour as of some pagan rite, stir one's heart strangely. Meanwhile, the village street has become filled with soldiers. Various detachments, just back from their work, fall in along the sides of the roadway. The men, with their steel helmets and leather coats, their breasts exposed to the wind, look like the legionaries of Rome. Nothing is lacking to this picture but the incense and the altar and the victims. The short, sharp words of command and the clink of weapons mingle with the wailing of the pipes, while at their cottage doors the lonely wives of French soldiers look on calmly at all this bustle in their street. A little fair-headed girl beats time to the music with her left hand. The night has been saluted by the armies of Britain. The night may now come. CHAPTER VIII. Y GULLY. Between Beaumont-Hamel and Beaucourt, near the bend which the Ancre makes where it turns to meet the Somme, there is a deep gully, about three hundred yards across, which the Tommies have christened--probably they were a trifle short of words that day--with the last letter but one of the alphabet. It is called Y Gully. Up to the very last fight on the Ancre the German lines ran in front of this gully, to the West. The enemy made use of this most valuable hollow to conceal there his reserves of men and ammunition. Its western cliffs could easily afford cover to a full brigade of infantry--and, indeed, they did so. At the bottom of the ravine runs a railway, in peace time of the ordinary gauge. The Germans, however, had found occasion to substitute for it a Décauville, and this was used, under the protection of the little valley, by the three German lines which defended the summit against the British troops. The position seemed to be one of tremendous strength.