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In one week's attack north of Verdun the Germans fired 2,400,000 field-gun shells and 600,000 larger ones. To transport this mountain of potential destruction required 240 trains, each carrying 200 tons of projectiles. During the "Big Push" on the Somme, there were frequently eighty guns on a front of two hundred yards.
Thus absorbed, the soldiers hardly noticed the growing musketry fire from the peak. But suddenly the bang of a field-gun set all eyes looking backward. A battery had unlimbered in the plain between the zeriba and the ridge, and was beginning to shell the summit of the hill. The report of the guns seemed to be the signal for the whole battle to reopen.
In the fire-trenches there is no talking save in whispers, but every now and then the almost uncanny silence would be punctuated by the sharp crack of a rifle, the tut-tut-tut of a mitrailleuse, or, from somewhere in the distance, the angry bark of a field-gun. There was a whispered conversation between the officer in command of the trench and my guide. The latter turned to me.
The framework, on wheels in front the distinctive characteristic of the plough is called collectively "tacks," and the shafts of the plough rest on it loosely, so that they swing or work almost independently, not unlike a field-gun limbered up. The pillars of the framework have numerous holes, so that the plough can be raised or lowered, that the share may dig deep or shallow.
The normal shelling of the afternoon a scattered bombardment all over the landscape, which only brings perhaps half a dozen shells to your immediate neighbourhood once in every ten minutes has noticeably quickened. The German is obviously turning on more batteries. The light field-gun shrapnel is fairly scattered as before. But 5.9-inch howitzers are being added to it.
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