The trees themselves were split as by lightning, or torn in half, as with your hands you could tear apart a loaf of bread.

Through some, solid shell had passed, leaving clean holes.

Others looked as though drunken woodsmen with axes from roots to topmost branches had slashed them in crazy fury.

Some shells had broken the trunks in half as a hurricane snaps a mast.
That no human being could survive such a bombardment were many grewsome proofs.

In one place for a mile the road was lined with those wicker baskets in which the Germans carry their ammunition.
These were filled with shells, unexploded, and behind the trenches were hundreds more of these baskets, some for the shells of the siege-guns, as large as lobster-pots or umbrella-stands, and others, each with three compartments, for shrapnel.