o move.

I edged my way along the broken stumps of wall to the shelter of a wood,
and there, with bullets from snipers occasionally sending twigs, leaves,
and even branches pattering down around me, with shells bursting all
round, I continued to film the general attack until the spool in the
camera ran out. To have changed spools there would have been the height
of folly, so I plunged down a side path, where in the shelter of a dell,
with thick undergrowth, I loaded up my camera again, and utterly
careless of direction, made a dash for the edge of the wood again,
emerging just in time to catch the passage of a French regiment
advancing along the edge of the wood to cut off the retreat of the
little party of Germans who had been endeavouring to hold it as an
advanced sniping-post.

Snipers seemed to be in every tree. Bullets whistled down like acorns in
the autumn breeze, but the French suddenly formed a semi-circle and
pushed right into the wood, driving the enemy from their perches in the
trees or shooting them as they scrambled down.

Through the wood I plunged, utterly ignoring every danger, both from
friend or foe, in the thrill of that wonderful "drive." Luck, however,
was with me. Neither the French nor the Germans seemed to see me, and we
all suddenly came out of the wood at the far side, and I then managed to
get a splendid picture of the end of the pursuit, when the French, wild
with excitement at their success in clearing the district of the enemy,
plunged madly down the hill in chase of the last remnants of the sniping
band.

A few seconds later I darted back into the cover of the trees.

My mission was accomplished. I had secured pictures of actual events in
the Vosges. But that was the least part of my work. I had to get the
film to London.

The excitement of the pursuit had taken me far from my starting-point,
and with the reaction that set in when I was alone in the wood, with all
its memories and its ghastly memorials of the carnage, I found it
required all my strength of nerve to push me on. I had to plough through
open spaces, two feet and more deep in snow, through undergrowth, not
knowing at what moment I might stumble across some unseen thing. Above
all, I had but the barest recollection of my direction. It seemed many
hours before I regained my stump of wall and found my skis lying just
where I had cast them off.

It was a race against time, too, for dusk was falling, and I knew that
it wo