ing of the coming attack; but they might not
know exactly the portion of front selected for the heaviest pressure,
and this must be kept secret till the last possible moment. So the
final filing up into the forward and support trenches was done by
night, and was so complete by daylight that no sign of unwonted
movement could be discerned from the enemy trenches and observing
stations when day broke.

It was a beautiful morning--soft and mildly warm and sunny, with just a
slight haze hanging low to tone the growing light, and, incidentally,
to delay the opening of fire from the guns. Anyone standing midway
between the forward firing trenches might have looked in vain for
living sign of the massed hordes waiting the word to be at each other's
throats. Looking forward from behind the British lines, it could be
seen that the trenches and parapets were packed with men; but no man
showed head over parapet, and, seen from the enemy's side, the parapets
presented blank, lifeless walls, the trenches gave no glimpse of life.
All the bustle and movement of the night before was finished. At
midnight every road and track leading to the forward trenches had been
brimming with men, with regiments tramping slowly or squatting stolidly
by the roadside, smoking much and talking little, had been crawling
with transport, with ammunition carts, and ambulances and
stretcher-parties, and sappers heavily laden with sandbags and rolls of
barbed wire. The trenches--support, communication, and firing--had
trickled with creeping rivulets of khaki caps and been a-bristle with
bobbing rifle-barrels. Further back amongst the lines of guns the last
loads of ammunition were rumbling up to the batteries, the last shells
required to 'complete establishment'--and over-complete it--were being
stowed in safe proximity to the guns. At midnight there were scores of
thousands of men and animals busily at work with preparations for the
slaughter-pen of the morrow. Before midnight came again the bustle
would be renewed, and the circling ripples of activity would be
spreading and widening from the central splash of the battle front till
the last waves washed back to Berlin and London, brimming the hospitals
and swirling through the munition factories. But now at daybreak the
battle-field was steeped in brooding calm. Across the open space of
the neutral ground a few trench periscopes peered anxiously for any
sign of movement, and saw none; the batteries