The dawn rose slowly, as though reluctant to look upon our handiwork. If it seemed slow to us, how much slower it must have seemed to the men whom we were slaughtering. There was no rush of golden splendour, no valiant peering of the sun above a treed horizon—only a thinly diffused pallor, shapeless and ghastly, which made the mist appear more impenetrable than ever. Day evaded us, hiding his chalky face in his hands, like a clown who had gazed on tragedy. When light came there was no laughter in its glance; it was a dead thing drifting in a stagnant emptiness. The flashes of the guns tore rents in the filmy obscurity by which we were surrounded, but they could not disperse it. Our eyes were smarting, our ears deafened, our senses astounded. The ground beneath our feet quivered as though it were the crust of a volcano. Our nerves shied at each fresh concussion, and our bodies trembled. We longed for the sky to become clear that we might learn what was happening. We had signalling parties attached to the infantry with flags and lamps. It had been arranged beforehand that we should watch various points in the captured country for their messages. If they had tried to send any back, none had been observed. As the strafe progressed, the mist was made doubly dense by the reek of battle. The atmosphere became choking with the fumes of high explosives and the enemy, in a desperate effort to silence us, commenced to shell us with gas. We lit innumerable cigarettes to steady our nerves and carried on mechanically with our destructive work. Running from gun-platform to gun-platform, we checked up the lays of the gunners. Every few minutes the whistle sounded for a lift in the barrage, and there was a momentary pause in the crash of discharge while the angle was changed and the range lengthened. Along the road to our left, where shells were falling, ambulances lurched and panted, leaving behind a trail of blood. Wounded Tommies staggered by, with their arms about the shoulders of wounded Huns. Meeting these derelicts who were returning, fresh companies of supporting infantry moved up, undaunted by the spectacle of a fate which they might share. At the sight of us firing they waved their caps shouting, “That’s the stuff to give ‘em. Give ‘em one for us boys. Give ‘em hell.”