very slowly, that they were of no more
protection than tissue paper under a rain of lead. So they were now
leaving for a place at longer range. Poor old grandmothers in black
bonnets and skirts trudged under the lines of poplars, with younger
women who clasped their babes tight in one hand while with the other
they carried heavy bundles of household goods. They did not walk
very fast. They did not seem very much afraid. They had a kind of
patient misery in their look. Along the road came some more German
prisoners, marching rapidly between mounted guards. Many of them
were wounded, and all of them had a wild, famished, terror-stricken
look. I caught the savage glare of their eyes as they stared into my
car. There was something beast-like and terrible in their gaze like that
of hunted animals caught in a trap.

At a turn in the road the battle lay before us, and we were in the zone
of fire. Away across the fields was a line of villages, with the town of
Dixmude a little to the right of us, perhaps two kilometres away. From
each little town smoke was rising in separate columns, which met at
the top in a great pall of smoke, as a heavy black cloud cresting
above the light on the horizon line. At every moment this blackness
was brightened by puffs of electric blue, extraordinarily vivid, as shells
burst in the air. Then the colour gradually faded out, and the smoke
darkened and became part of the pall. From the mass of houses in
each town came jabs of flame, following the explosions which
sounded with terrific, thudding shocks.

Upon a line of fifteen kilometres there was an incessant cannonade
and in every town there was a hell. The furthest villages were already
alight. I watched how the flames rose, and became great glowing
furnaces, terribly beautiful. Quite close to us--only a kilometre away
across the fields to the left--there were Belgian batteries at work, and
rifle-fire from many trenches. We were between two fires, and the
Belgian and German shells came screeching across our heads. The
enemy's shells were dropping close to us, ploughing up the fields with
great pits. We could hear them burst and scatter, and could see them
burrow. In front of us on the road lay a dreadful barrier, which brought
us to a halt. An enemy's shell had fallen right on top of an ammunition
convoy. Four horses had been blown to pieces, and lay strewn
across the road. The ammunition wagon had been broken into
fragments, and smashed and bu