rmans
had after their retreat from the Marne was brought home afresh once you
were on conquered ground. A mile more or less of depth had no
sentimental interest to them, for they were on foreign soil. They had
chosen their positions by armies, by corps, by battalions, by hundreds
of miles and tens of miles and tens of yards with the view to a command
of observation and ground. This was a simple application of the formula
as old as man; but it was their numbers and preparedness that permitted
its application and wherever the Allies were to undertake the offensive
they must face this military fact, which made the test of their skill
against frontal positions all the stiffer and added tribute to success.

The scene in front reminded one of a great carpet which did not lie flat
on the floor but was in undulations, with the whole on an incline toward
Longueval and High Wood Ridge. The Ridge I shall call it after this,
for so it was in capital letters to millions of French, British and
German soldiers in the summer of 1916. And this carpet was peopled with
men in a game of hide and seek with death among its folds.

No vehicle, no horse was anywhere visible. Yet it was a poignantly live
world where the old trench lines had been a dead world--a world alive in
the dots of men strung along the crest, in others digging new trenches,
in messengers and officers on the move, in clumps of reserves behind a
hillock or in a valley. Though bursting shrapnel jackets whipped out the
same kind of puffs as always from a flashing center which spread into
nimbus radiant in the sunlight and the high explosives sent up the same
spouts of black smoke as if a stick of dynamite had burst in a coal box,
the shell fire seemed different; it had a quality of action and
adventure in comparison with the monotonous exhibition which we had
watched in stalemate warfare. Death now had some element of glory and
sport. It was less like set fate in a stationary shambles.

Directly ahead was a bare sweep of field of waste wild grass between the
German communication trenches where wheat had grown before the war, and
the British firing-line seemed like heads fastened to a greenish
blanket. Holding the ground that they had gained, they were waiting on
something to happen elsewhere. Others must advance before they could go
farther.

The battle was not general; it raged at certain points where the Germans
had anchored themselves after some recovery from the stagge