In their light I saw trees falling, branches tossed like
twigs, black things hurtling through space. In the night before the
battle, when that bombardment had lasted several days and nights, the
fury was intensified. Red flames darted hither and thither like little
red devils as our trench mortars got to work. Above the slogging of
the guns there were louder, earth-shaking noises, and volcanoes of
earth and fire spouted as high as the clouds. One convulsion of this
kind happened above Usna Hill, with a long, terrifying roar and a
monstrous gush of flame.
"What is that?" asked some one.
"It must be the mine we charged at La Boisselle. The biggest that has
ever been."
It was a good guess. When, later in the battle, I stood by the crater
of that mine and looked into its gulf I wondered how many Germans had
been hurled into eternity when the earth had opened. The grave was big
enough for a battalion of men with horses and wagons, below the chalk
of the crater's lips. Often on the way to Bapaume I stepped off the
road to look into that white gulf, remembering the moment when I saw
the gust of flame that rent the earth about it.
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