dry
enough to give firm foothold to the ranks of infantry charging across
the death-trap of the neutral ground, where clogging, wet, slippery mud
adds to the minutes under the hail of fire and every minute there in
the open means hundreds of lives lost. The hard, dry road underfoot
means merely that roads are passable for heavy guns and transport. The
thick green foliage of the trees is so much cover for guns and the
moving of troops and transport under concealment from air observation;
the clear, blue sky promises the continuance of fine weather, the final
release from the inactivity of the trenches. To these men the 'Promise
of Spring' is the promise of the crescendo of battle and slaughter.

The General and his Staff are standing in the middle of a wide patch of
poppies, spread out in a bright scarlet that matches exactly the red
splashes on the brows and throats of the group. They move slowly back
towards the cars, and as they walk the red ripples and swirls against
their boots and about their knees.

One might imagine them wading knee-deep in a river of blood.

THE ADVANCE

'_The attack has resulted in our line being advanced from one to two
hundred yards along a front of over one thousand yards._'--OFFICIAL
DESPATCH.

Down to the rawest hand in the latest-joined drafts, everyone knew for
a week before the attack commenced that 'something was on,' and for
twenty-four hours before that the 'something' was a move of some
importance, no mere affair of a battalion or two, or even of brigades,
but of divisions and corps and armies. There had been vague stirrings
in the regiments far behind the firing line 'in rest,' refittings and
completings of kits, reissuing of worn equipments, and a most ominous
anxiety that each man was duly equipped with an 'identity disc,' the
tell-tale little badge that hangs always round the neck of a man on
active service and that bears the word of who he is when he is brought
in wounded--who he was when brought in dead. The old hands judged all
the signs correctly and summed them up in a sentence, 'Being fattened
for the slaughter,' and were in no degree surprised when the sudden
order came to move. Those farthest back moved up the first stages by
daylight, but when they came within reach of the rumbling guns they
were halted and bivouacked to wait for night to cloak their movements
from the prying eyes of the enemy 'planes. The enemy might
have--probably had--an inkl