the Somme,
until it reached the intensity of a fire of preparation. Knowing, as
they did, that an attack was to come, the enemy made ready and kept on
the alert. Throughout the front, they expected the attack for the next
morning.

The fire was maintained throughout the night, but no attack was made
in the morning, except by aeroplanes. These raided the enemy
observation balloons, destroyed nine of them, and made it impossible
for the others to keep in the air. The shelling continued all that
day, searching the line and particular spots with intense fire and
much asphyxiating gas. Again the enemy prepared for an attack in the
morning, and again there was no attack, although the fire of
preparation still went on. The enemy said, "To-morrow will make three
whole days of preparation; the English will attack to-morrow." But
when the morning came, there was no attack, only the never-ceasing
shelling, which seemed to increase as time passed. It was now
difficult and dangerous to move within the enemy lines. Relieving
exhausted soldiers, carrying out the wounded, and bringing up food
and water to the front, became terrible feats of war. The fire
continued and increased, all that day and all the next day, and the
day after that. It darkened the days with smoke and lit the nights
with flashes. It covered the summer landscape with a kind of haze of
hell, earth-coloured above fields and reddish above villages, from the
dust of blown mud and brick flung up into the air. The tumult of these
days and nights cannot be described nor imagined. The air was without
wind yet it seemed in a hurry with the passing of death. Men knew not
which they heard, a roaring that was behind and in front, like a
presence, or a screaming that never ceased to shriek in the air. No
thunder was ever so terrible as that tumult. It broke the drums of the
ears when it came singly, but when it rose up along the front and gave
tongue together in full cry it humbled the soul. With the roaring,
crashing, and shrieking came a racket of hammers from the machine guns
till men were dizzy and sick from the noise, which thrust between
skull and brain, and beat out thought. With the noise came also a
terror and an exultation, that one should hurry, and hurry, and hurry,
like the shrieking shells, into the pits of fire opening on the hills.
Every night in all this week the enemy said, "The English will attack
to-morrow," and in the front lines prayed that the attack migh