Overhead hum and roar the aeroplanes,
away towards the enemy the humped, blue sausage-shaped kite balloons
brood thoughtfully, and from this point and that, guns, curiously
invisible until they speak, flash suddenly and strike their one short
hammer-blow of sound.
Then one sees an enemy shell drop among the little patch of trees on
the crest to the right, and kick up a great red-black mass of smoke and
dust. We see it, and then we hear the whine of its arrival and at last
the bang. The Germans are blind now, they have lost the air, they are
firing by guesswork and their knowledge of the abandoned territory.
"They think they have got divisional headquarters there," someone
remarks.... "They haven't. But they keep on."
In this zone where shells burst the wise automobile stops and tucks
itself away as inconspicuously as possible close up to a heap of ruins.
There is very little traffic on the road now except for a van or so that
hurries up, unloads, and gets back as soon as possible. Mules and men
are taking the stuff the rest of the journey. We are in a flattened
village, all undermined by dug-outs that were in the original German
second line. We report ourselves to a young troglodyte in one of these,
and are given a guide, and so set out on the last part of the journey
to the ultimate point, across the land of shell craters and barbed
wire litter and old and new trenches.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114