Man's
Land--Not beaten but roughly handled.

In the room at the head of the narrow stairs in the schoolhouse of the
quiet headquarters town we should have the answer to the question, Has
the British attack succeeded? which was throbbing in our pulsebeats. By
the same map on the table in the center of the room showing the plan of
attack with its lines indicating the objectives we should learn how many
of them had been gained. The officer who had outlined the plan of battle
with fine candor was equally candid about its results, so far as they
were known. Not only did he avoid mincing words, but he avoided wasting
them.

From Thiepval northward the situation was obscure. The German artillery
response had been heavy and the action almost completely blanketed from
observation. Some detachments must have reached their objective, as
their signals had been seen. From La Boisselle southward the British had
taken every objective. They were in Mametz and Montauban and around
Fricourt. For the French it had been a clean sweep, without a single
repulse. Twenty miles of those formidable German fortifications were in
the possession of the Allies.

On the ledge of the schoolroom window, with the shrill voices of the
children at recess playing in the yard below rising to my ears, I wrote
my dispatch for the press at home, less conscious then than now of the
wonder of the situation. Downstairs the cure of the church next door was
standing on the steps, an expectant look in his eyes. When I told him
the news his smile and the flash of his eye, which lacked the meekness
usually associated with the Church, were good to see.

"And the French?" he asked.

"All of their objectives!"

"Ah!" He drew a deep breath and rubbed his hands together softly. "And
prisoners?"

"A great many."

"Ah! And guns?"

"Yes."

Thus he ran up the scale of happiness. I left him on the steps of the
church with a proud, glad, abstracted look.

Beyond the town peaceful fields stretched away to the battle area, where
figures packed together inside the new prisoners' inclosures made a
green blot. Litters were thick in the streets of the casualty clearing
stations which had been empty yesterday. There were no idle ambulances
now. They had passengers in green as well as in khaki. The first
hospital trains were pulling out from the rail-head across from a
clearing station. Thus promptly, as foreseen, the processes of battle
had worked themselves out.