e," where smoke and flame mocked
the calm of the morning sky, that the watcher felt he was gazing upon
eternal things.

When it got thoroughly light I determined to go on up the road to the
3rd Artillery Brigade which was to press on after the infantry. I
found both officers and men very keen and preparing to advance. For
weeks at night, they had been making bridges over the trenches, so
that the guns could be moved forward rapidly on the day of the attack.
I had breakfast with the O.C. of one of the batteries, a young fellow
only twenty-three years of age who had left McGill to enter the war.
He was afterwards killed in front of Arras. After breakfast I went on
up the line till I came to the 3rd Artillery Brigade Headquarters, and
there asked for the latest reports of progress. They were feeling
anxious because the advancing battalions had given no signal for some
time, and it was thought that they might have been held up. Someone,
however looked at his watch and then at the schedule time of attack,
and found that at that particular moment the men were to rest for (p. 169)
ten minutes before pressing on. The instant the time for advance came,
rockets were sent up to show that our men were still going ahead. I
went up the road to Neuville St. Vaast, where there was an aid post,
and there I saw the wounded coming in, some walking, with bandaged
arms and heads, and some being brought in on stretchers. They were all
in high spirits and said that the attack had been a great success. Of
course, the walking wounded were the first to appear, the more serious
cases came afterwards, but still there was the note of triumph in all
the accounts of the fighting which I heard. I moved on to a track near
Maison Blanche, and then followed up the men. The ridge by this time
was secured and our front line was still pressing forward on the heels
of the retreating Germans. It was a glorious moment. The attack which
we had looked forward to and prepared for so long had been successful.
The Germans had been taken by surprise and the important strategic
point which guarded the rich coal fields of Northern France was in our
possession.

The sight of the German trenches was something never to be forgotten.
They had been strongly held and had been fortified with an immense
maze of wire. But now they were ploughed and shattered by enormous
shell holes. The wire was twisted and torn and the whole of that
region looked as if a volcanic upheaval