Not one building in all the town was unwrecked. The French "75's," with some aid from the British howitzers, reduced Vermelles to ruins in the most literal and complete sense. Every edifice, from the piles of brick around the few tottering walls that was once a proud château to the humblest barn or outbuilding, was in itself a study. The evidence left by such shell-fire of its power for evil is of fascinating interest owing to its infinite variety. One wall had withstood half-a-dozen punctures of varying diameter, holes four or five feet in width, some of them, while its fellow beside it had crumbled into a formless mass of _débris_. Side by side were two houses, one with front practically intact, its roof gone and its interior and back portion blown to bits, the other minus front wall, but still standing, its roof at a crazy angle, resting insecurely on the remainder of the building, which, save for a scar here and there, escaped comparatively untouched. It is this caprice of shell-fire that makes such a veritable hell of it. Trenches with sides blown in; here a hole like a good-sized cellar; there a traverse filled to the level of the ground around it; a gap in the defence wall in front; iron-work twisted into grotesque shapes; stone-work pulverised; _débris_ in piles; with clothing, bedding, household implements, farm machinery and gear, child's toys, religious emblems, personal effects, and bundles of every description, all jumbled together in such an odd, unnatural way, that a laugh and a catch in the throat often came together. Vermelles on that sodden day in January was full of French soldiers in reserve--men of the 131st and 262nd Infantry Brigades, some from 16th and some from 18th Corps units. The firing line proper was from three to four kilometres to the eastward. On the west side of the town a French battery was firing regularly, the shells singing over our heads. The German shells were falling frequently half a mile in front of us. It was my good fortune to discover a French soldier who had seen the actual final bayonet attack which won the position. His story was graphic, but told in few words. The creeping up to the forward French trenches, the fierce bombardment, the wild charge, the discovery that in spite of the fact that the place had been literally blown to bits, and German dead strewn everywhere, some defenders still held on and manned the murderous machine-guns, until they felt the cold steel--it all seemed so matter-of-fact, and such a matter-of-course sort of story in such surroundings.