Before us lay the plain, and all round us on the hillside, except in the space before us, were trees of Farbus Wood.

At four-thirty the barrage opened, and we had a fine view of the line of bursting shells along the enemy's front.

For a time our fire was very intense, and when it eased off I started down the hill to the town of Willerval, where in a dugout I found the officers of one of our battalions regaling themselves with the bottles of wine and mineral water which the Germans had left behind them in their well-stocked cellars.

Willerval was badly smashed, but enough was left to show what a charming place it must have been in the days before the war.

In the shell-ploughed gardens, spring flowers were putting up inquiring faces, and asking for the smiles and admiration of the flower-lovers who would tread those broken paths no more.