d a rushing noise as though great birds were in flight behind
the veil of mist which lay on the hillsides. Puffs of woolly-white smoke
showed where the shrapnel was bursting, and these were wisped
away into the heavy clouds. Now and again one heard the high
singing note of shells travelling towards us--the German answer to
this demonstration--and one saw the puff balls resting on the hill-spur
opposite our observation post.

Presently the fire became less scattered, and as the appointed hour
approached our batteries aimed only in one direction. It was the ridge
to the left of the hill where lines of German trenches had been dug
below the fringe of wood. That place must have been a hell for half an
hour or more. Through the mist and the drowsy smoke I could see
the flashes of the bursting shells like twinkling stars. Those glittering
jewels sparkled in constellations, six or more at a time, and there was
never a minute without the glint of them. It was not hard to imagine
the terror of men crouching in pits below that storm of fire,
smashing down upon their trenches, cutting up their barbed wire
entanglements, killing any human life that could not hide below the
ground. The din of guns was unceasing, and made a great symphony
of staccato notes on a thunderous instrument. I could distinguish the
sharp crack of the field batteries and the deeper boom of the heavier
guns. When one of these spoke there was a trembling of earth, and
through the sky a great shell hurtled, with such a rush of air that it
seemed like an express train dashing through an endless tunnel. The
bursts were, like volcanoes above the German lines, vomiting
upwards a vast column of black smoke which stood solid on the sky-
line for a minute or more before being torn down by the wind.
Something within me seemed to quake at these engines of
destruction, these masses of explosive power sent for the killing of
men, invisible there on the ridge, but cowering in fear or lying in their
blood.

How queer are the battlefields of life and the minds of men! Down
below me, in a field, men were playing a game of football while all this
business of death was going on. Above and between the guns I
heard their shouts and cheers, and the shrill whistle for "half-time,"
though there was no half-time in the other game so close to them.
Nature, too, was playing, indifferent to this bloody business. All the
time, while the batteries were at work, birds were singing the spr