“Silence Those Guns!”
Quite the worst sight I saw was when a big mass of French infantry were advancing to clear the front of our position, where the Germans had been gathering in strength. They were coming along at the double, carrying everything before them, when, without the slightest warning, German batteries posted under the shelter of a wood opened fire upon them with a deadly shower of shrapnel and machine-gun bullets. The long advancing line seemed to contract like a frog does when you stick a pin in it, and it isn’t any exaggeration to say that you could hear the shells cutting through their closely packed ranks just like the scythe cuts through the grass. The men went down by the hundred until they opened in extended order. Then they made a rush for the position where the guns were, and though they were galled by a heavy infantry fire, and were attacked by both infantry and cavalry at nearly every step of the way, they ultimately fought their way along and silenced those guns: A Lance-Corporal of the Royal Irish Fusiliers.