We were working
against time, always against time, and another tire-burst would mean
that no despatch could be written of a great battle on the British
front, or only a short record written in the wildest haste when there
was so much to tell, so much to describe, such unforgetable pictures
in one's brain of another day's impressions in the fields and on the
roads.
There were five English correspondents and, two years later, two
Americans. On mornings of big battle we divided up the line of front
and drew lots for the particular section which each man would cover.
Then before the dawn, or in the murk of winter mornings, or the first
glimmer of a summer day, our cars would pull out and we would go off
separately to the part of the line allotted to us by the number drawn,
to see the preliminary bombardment, to walk over newly captured
ground, to get into the backwash of prisoners and walking wounded,
amid batteries firing a new barrage, guns moving forward on days of
good advance, artillery transport bringing up new stores of
ammunition, troops in support marching to repel a counter-attack or
follow through the new objectives, ambulances threading their way back
through the traffic, with loads of prostrate men, mules, gunhorses,
lorries churning up the mud in Flanders.
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