Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/251

Rh far from us stretched a brick wall, pierced for rifle and machine gun fire. Just beyond was a ruined farm, notorious for some of the worst hand to hand fighting of the war.

"From behind that wall, and from the farm, after they had got it," Williams said," the French went forth to the capture of that network of trenches off there, just behind our present front line."

You stared, not because of the familiar name of those trenches, but because it seemed impossible to you that men could have crossed the several hundred yards of open ground between the wall and the network. Even with artillery preparation such an attempt seemed suicidal.

But, as Williams told us, men had fallen all around here. To the left we could see deserted dug-outs, captured in September. At some distance a spur of land thrust out a broad plateau. It was absolutely bare. Before the war it had been thickly wooded.

The present British and German trenches made yellow scars along a low ridge. The German line was a little above the British. Both passed through a ruined village. As we watched, the bombardment became more violent. We could see the effect of every hit. Shell after shell of high explosives sent black clouds springing from