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Updated: May 13, 2025
An hour later we found ourselves proceeding cautiously along a murky road close behind the trenches. The big guns were silent, but the snipers were busy on both sides. A German searchlight was combing out the heavens above: a constant succession of star-shells illumined the earth beneath.
Doubtless the Germans have a thousand different accounts of it. I know this, and the world knows it: that night the Germans melted. They were. Then they broke into parties and were not. We pursued them as they ran. Suddenly the star-shells ceased from bursting overhead, and out of black darkness I heard Colonel Kirby's voice thundering an order. Then a trumpet blared.
You may imagine with what methodical solemnity the Boche "crumps" the interior of that constricted area. Looking round at night, when the star-shells float up over the skyline, one could almost imagine one's self inside a complete circle, instead of a horseshoe. The machine-gunners of both sides are extremely busy.
Darkness came, and with it a host of star-shells, or Verey lights, which were shot up high in the air from both the German and our own trenches. They looked for all the world like a huge firework display at the Crystal Palace. Rain had ceased. The heavens were studded with countless millions of stars. "Great prospects for to-morrow," said one. "I hope it's fine, for the sake of the boys.
If they remained it would be necessary to place the camera higher above the top than was safe or wise. Carefully pulling myself up, I lay along the top of the parapet and pushed them aside. Several star-shells were fired whilst I was so engaged, and I dare not stir I scarcely dared breathe for fear the slightest movement would draw a stream of bullets in my direction.
No friendly billet was now in sight, and as we stood profanely considering our plight the darkness behind us was split by a long shaft of greenish light, and the whole landscape was illuminated with a pallid glow, as the German star-shells discharged themselves over the fan-like tops of the elms silhouetted against the sky.
For a second the anguish and the effort stopped my heart and in a nightmare I saw the cadaverous littleness of my grave closing over me. At the end of this torture we got up again, in spite of the knapsacks. The last star-shells were sending a bloody aurora borealis into the morning. Sudden haloes drew our glances and crests of black smoke went up like cypresses.
Shells were striking about him, which did not break; but from the butts of these fumes were floating. The Germans, showing in the light of the star-shells, had become snouted creatures in their gas helmets. They appeared only for an instant, as, jumping up from one trench, where the shells were falling, they rushed to another deep defile.
Star-shells burst into flame overhead, showing dashing poilus, flickered from the tips of bayonets and lit up the smoke from exploding shells, where a canopy of it hung about the devoted heads of that gallant corps. In the darkness, in the fitful light cast by those shells, now and again augmented by the flashing beams of an electric search-light, a desperate hand-to-hand conflict took place.
Buttons are resuming their polish; the pattern of our kilts is emerging from its superficial crust; and Church Parade is once more becoming quite a show affair. Away to the east the guns still thunder, and at night the star-shells float tremblingly up over the distant horizon. But not for us. Not yet, that is. In a few weeks' time we shall be back in another part of the line.
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