There was a white frost over the fields, and all the battle-front was
veiled by a mist which clung round the villages and farmsteads behind
the lines and made a dense bank of gray fog below the rising ground.
This curtain was rent with flashes of light and little glinting stars
burst continually over one spot, where the Bluff was hidden beyond
Zillebeke Lake. When daybreak came, with the rim of a red sun over a
clump of trees in the east, the noise of guns increased in spasms of
intensity like a rising storm. Many batteries of heavy artillery were
firing salvos. Field-guns, widely scattered, concentrated their fire
upon one area, where their shells were bursting with a twinkle of
light. Somewhere a machine-gun was at work with sharp, staccato
strokes, like an urgent knocking at the door. High overhead was the
song of an airplane coming nearer, with a high, vibrant humming. It
was an enemy searching through the mist down below him for any
movement of troops or trains.
It was the 76th Brigade of the 3d Division which attacked at four
thirty-two that morning, and they were the Suffolks, Gordons, and
King's Own Liverpools who led the assault, commanded by General Pratt.
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