This afternoon I
heard that it was indeed so, and that one division (the 58th), which
had tried to work along the river bank and outflank the hill, had been
caught by a concentration of six batteries of French 75's, which were
situated across the river. The unfortunate 58th, forced back from the
river-side, had heroically fought their way up the side of the hill,
only to encounter our barrage, which, owing to the mist, we thought was
well above and ahead of where they would be.
Under this fresh blow the 58th had retired to their trenches at the
bottom of the small valley. As the day warmed up the mist disappeared,
and, like a theatre curtain, the lifting of this veil revealed the
whole scene in its terrible and yet mechanical splendour.
I say mechanical, for it all seemed unreal to me. I knew I should not
see cavalry charges, guns in the open, and all the old-world panoply of
war, but I was not prepared for this barren and shell-torn circle of
hills, continually being freshly, and, to an uninformed observer,
aimlessly lashed by shell fire.
Not a man in sight, though below us the ground was thickly strewn with
corpses. Overhead a few aeroplanes circled round amidst balls of white
shell bursts.
During the day the slow-circling aeroplanes (which were artillery
observing machines) were galvanized into frightful activity by the
sudden appearance of a fighting machine on one side or the other; this
happened several times; it reminded me of a pike amongst young trout.
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