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Sharp stabs of flame vomited out of the slopes of Vimy. There was the high, long-drawn scream of shells in flight to Notre Dame de Lorette. Batteries of soixante-quinzes were firing rapidly, and their shells cut through the air above us like scythes. The caldron in this pit of war was being stirred up. Another wounded poilu was carried past us, covered by a bloody blanket like the other one.
The Germans one day made a pounce on Frise, that little village in the loop of the Somme, and "pinched" every man of the French garrison. There was the devil to pay, and I heard it being played to the tune of the French soixante-quinzes, slashing over the trees. Vaux and Curlu went the way of all French villages in the zone of war, when the battles of the Somme began, and were blown off the map.
Now it was all together for the guns in the preliminary whirlwind, with soixante-quinzes ahead sparkling up and down like the flashes of an automatic electric sign, making a great, thrumming beat of sound in the valley, and the 120's near by doing their best, too, with their wicked crashes, while the ridges beyond were a bobbing canopy of looming, curling smoke.
The Germans, in spite of monstrous losses under the flail of the soixante-quinzes, were forcing their way from slope to slope, capturing positions which all but dominated the whole of the Verdun heights. "If the French break we shall lose the war," said the pessimist. "The French will never lose Verdun," said the optimist. "Why not?
A thrifty victory Seventeen-inch guns asleep A procession of guns that gorged the roads French rules of the road Absence of system conceals an excellent system Spoils of war The Colonial Corps The "chocolates" "Boches" Dramatic victors The German line in front of the French attack Galloping soixante-quinzes.
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