was a good piece of news. But
against it was the heavy loss of a Belgian company holding another
bridge further down the river. At Dixmude the Belgians held the outer
streets. Outside there had been heavy trench fighting. The enemy
had charged several times with the bayonet, but had been raked
back by the mitrailleuses.

Things were going on rather well at most parts of the line.

The French batteries were getting the range every time, and their
gunners were guessing at heaps of German dead. The Belgian
infantry was holding firm. Their cavalry was out of action for the time,
trying to keep warm on the roadsides.

That was all the truth that I could get out of a tangle of confused
details. All through another day I watched the business of battle--a
strange, mysterious thing in which one fails to find any controlling
brain. Regiments came out of the trenches and wandered back,
caked with clay, haggard for lack of sleep, with a glint of hunger in
their eyes. Guns passed along the roads with ammunition wagons,
whose axles shrieked over the stones. For an hour a Belgian battery
kept plugging shots towards the enemy's lines. The artillerymen were
leisurely at their work, handling their shells with interludes of
conversation. At luncheon time they lay about behind the guns
smoking cigarettes, and I was glad, for each of their shots seemed to
wreck my own brain. At a neighbouring village things were more
lively. The enemy was turning his fire this way. A captive balloon had
signalled the position, and shrapnels were bursting close. One shell
tore up a great hole near the railway line.

Shell after shell fell upon one dung-heap--mistaken perhaps for a
company of men. Shrapnel bullets pattered into the roadway, a piece
of jagged shell fell with a clatter.

My own chauffeur--a young man of very cool nerve and the best
driver I have known--picked it up with a grin, and then dropped it, with
a sharp cry. It was almost red-hot. The flames of the enemy's
batteries could be seen stabbing through a fringe of trees, perhaps
two kilometres away, by Pervyse. Their shells were making puff-balls
of smoke over neighbouring farms, and for miles round I could see
the clouds stretching out into long, thin wisps. The air throbbed with
horrible concussions, the dull full boom of big guns, the sharp
staccato of the smaller shell, and the high singing note of it as it came
soaring overhead. Gradually one began to realize the boredom of
battle