As though red-hot needles were stabbing at the drums, our ears are ringing and deafened. The air quivers and the ground flies up as if it were about to open. Our eyes are scorched by a marching wall of flame, against which are etched our rapid gunners, hurling hell across the valley like men demented, and our gallant eighteen-pounders barking, recoiling and bristling like infuriated terriers. We’re off with a vengeance. The greatest offensive of the war has started. Shall we get away with it in so advanced a position? At all events, it’s an end of waiting—that at least is a comfort. II YESTERDAY’. attack was a complete success—so complete that, in spite of all our preparations, its magnitude took us unaware. Had anyone, had the faith to foresee a Him defeat of such dimensions, we should have been able to have made a more deadly use of our advantage. As it was we lost a certain amount of time and, as a consequence, wasted some of our chances. The trouble was, as usual, that we were controlled too much from the rear by staff-people, who didn’t come up-front to see what was happening for themselves, but gathered all their information second and third-hand. When the psychological moment had arrived for us to go forward, they became nervous and held us back. There were interminable telephone conversations with observers, liaison-officers, battery-commanders, all and sundry, before they could be persuaded that we were not proposing to put our heads into a trap. Staff-people are the most incorrigible pessimists. They will never believe the fighter when he sends back word that victory is in his hands. They make him leave off fighting to answer foolish questions; by the time they permit him to go on fighting the enemy has very frequently recovered himself. They are so cursed with a fatal belief in their own omniscience that they scarcely credit the combatants, who run all the risks, with sense.