A tiny creek ran deep through a sharp cutting, in the sheer banks of which the French gunners had burrowed like rabbits. Battery on battery of "75's" were hidden in the forest. Each gun was surrounded by a little hut of mud and leaves, an aperture left for each slim, blue-grey muzzle. We passed the first of these batteries without seeing it. Close behind us it opened fire, causing me to jump as if I had been shot. Before we left the wood, three other batteries went into action about us. The din was terrific, but the sound of the shells racing overhead was most fascinating. Each gun crew had cleared a neat line of fire in the tree-tops in front of its position. Over further fields and through another wood we came upon a most picturesque cantonment. A French Infantry Brigade in reserve had built hundreds of mud huts and dug-outs with charming ingenuity. Dozens of veteran architects, past masters of rude shelter construction, vied with each other in improving on previous designs. As I took a snapshot in the dull light under the trees, the French soldiers crowded forward in twos and threes, and smilingly invited me to photograph their _maisons de luxe_. Cavan's House, our landmark, we left well on our right, edging from it the more as we saw it a very storm centre of fours and eights of shrapnel that morning. Snipers' bullets sang merrily above as we reached the reserve line and Brigade Headquarters. My work as guide finished, I started back with General de Lisle, who, having come up early in the morning, had left his horse in the wood which sheltered the French reserves. Mounting, the General pointed out a new route for my return, shorter than the one by which I had come. "Keep that rise of ground between you and the line of high ground beyond," said de Lisle. "If you don't, the Germans will see you and pot at you." Crossing my first field, I seemed to be well in the line of spent bullets, as several kicked up the dirt in the front of me sufficiently close to make me imagine myself the target. I lost little time for the first few hundred yards. A maze of reserve trenches and wire pulled me up short. The only path through was a quagmire. Safe beyond at last, I started collecting German timing fuses, which lay thick on the surface of the muddy field. Not far on my left was a ruined farm. The sun came out amid the swiftly-moving clouds. "A splendid example of what shells can do to a group of buildings," I thought. "I must get a picture of the piles of _débris_." I circled the smashed houses, took my picture, replaced my camera in its case, and turned to look sunward, as the clouds had cast a dull shadow all about me. An open bit of blue was racing toward the spot where the sun was hidden. Should I wait for it and essay a further snapshot?