WATCHING THE BEGINNINGS
Waking up early in the morning on the blanket bed on the floor of the dugout and taking a first peek through the sandbagged entrance, it was plain that our best hopes were going to be realized and that it would be a clear day with good visibility. The sun had not yet appeared, but the clouds were few and the early light showed every feature of the country. Here and there were dark dots denoting the waiting batteries, while sausage balloons were already swinging overhead.
In the messroom the commanding General sat at breakfast, cleanly shaven and unworried, although he had been on the front line most of the night. This General, who was in immediate command, talked not about the attack, but about the censorship, tactfully choosing the favorite subject of every correspondent.
By this time the artillery had started, so we went out along the road toward the front, passing a line of ambulances parked under the trees. The further we went along the road the more frequent became the flashes of the explosions on either side, but thus far not a single boche shell had come in and the sounds overhead were all caused by the familiar rushing of our shells and none by the whistle of the boche shells.
Some distance up the road was a vantage spot whence we got a clear view of Cantigny, or the spot where it had been. It was a picture terrible in its grandeur. Cantigny might have been a volcano in eruption shooting up clouds that were first white, then brown, then black, while above the air was filled with spiral shaped black clouds of exploding shrapnel.