s in front, with the blue smoke of their cigarettes curling
upwards and their equipment and rifles stacked beside them.

A desultory bombardment on each side droned stolidly on, while away to
the front three British aeroplanes, seemingly come from nowhere,
tumbled and looped round two Germans like mosquitoes over a pool. A
row of sausage balloons like a barber's rash adorned the sky as far as
the eye could see. Just an everyday scene on the Somme, and meanwhile
the actors waited.

"Come up to the top. There's ten minutes to go." The Staff Captain
and the Sapper--their dispute settled--strolled amicably to the top of
the hill behind the dug-out and produced their field-glasses. Away in
front Essex Trench could be seen, and the men inside it, standing to.
For them the period of suspense was nearly over--the curtain was just
going up.

"One minute." The Sapper snapped his watch to and focussed his
glasses. "They're on."

Suddenly from all around, as if touched by a spring, an ear-splitting
din leaped into life. In the valley behind them it seemed as if
hundreds of tongues of flame were darting and quivering, sprouting from
what a moment before was barren ground. The acrid smell of cordite
drifted over them, while without cessation there came the solemn
boom--boom--boom of the heavier guns way back. Like the _motif_ of an
opera, the field-guns and light howitzers cracked and snorted,
permeating everything with one continuous blast of sound; while the
sonorous roar and rumble of the giant pieces behind--slower, as
befitted them--completed the mighty orchestra. Neither man could hear
the other speak; but then, they were both watching too intently for
that.

Hardly had hell been let loose when a line of men arose from Essex
Trench and walked steadily to their front. Just ahead of them great
clouds of smoke rose belching from the ground: clouds into which they
vanished at times, only to reappear a moment later. They were
advancing behind a creeping barrage, and advancing with the steadiness
of automatic machines.

"Good lads! Good lads!" The Staff Captain's lips framed the words;
his voice was inaudible.

Every now and then a man pitched forward and lay still; or muttered a
curse as he felt the sting of something in his arm. A section on the
left dropped suddenly, only to worm on again by ones and twos, trying
to avoid the dreaded toc-toc--slow and menacing--of a German
machine-gun. Then the bombers w