At times shells would strike in the villages of Breuil and Vauxbain, and houses would burst into flames, the gale fanning the fire to great height and hiding the village in smoke.

Some three hundred yards ahead of us the shells of German siege-guns were trying to destroy the road, which the poplars clearly betrayed.

But their practice was at fault, and the shells fell only on either side.

When they struck they burst with a roar, casting up black fumes and digging a grave twenty yards in circumference.
But the French soldiers disregarded them entirely.

In the trenches which the Germans had made and abandoned they hid from the wind and slept peacefully.