Over further fields and through another wood we came upon a most picturesque cantonment. A French Infantry Brigade in reserve had built hundreds of mud huts and dug-outs with charming ingenuity. Dozens of veteran architects, past masters of rude shelter construction, vied with each other in improving on previous designs. As I took a snapshot in the dull light under the trees, the French soldiers crowded forward in twos and threes, and smilingly invited me to photograph their maisons de luxe.
Cavan's House, our landmark, we left well on our right, edging from it the more as we saw it a very storm centre of fours and eights of shrapnel that morning.
Snipers' bullets sang merrily above as we reached the reserve line and Brigade Headquarters. My work as guide finished, I started back with General de Lisle, who, having come up early in the morning, had left his horse in the wood which sheltered the French reserves.
Mounting, the General pointed out a new route for my return, shorter than the one by which I had come.
"Keep that rise of ground between you and the line of high ground beyond," said de Lisle. "If you don't, the Germans will see you and pot at you."
Crossing my first field, I seemed to be well in the line of spent bullets, as several kicked up the dirt in the front of me sufficiently close to make me imagine myself the target. I lost little time for the first few hundred yards.
A maze of reserve trenches and wire pulled me up short. The only path through was a quagmire. Safe beyond at last, I started collecting German timing fuses, which lay thick on the surface of the muddy field.
Not far on my left was a ruined farm. The sun came out amid the swiftly-moving clouds. "A splendid example of what shells can do to a group of buildings," I thought. "I must get a picture of the piles of débris."
I circled the smashed houses, took my picture, replaced my camera in its case, and turned to look sunward, as the clouds had cast a dull shadow all about me. An open bit of blue was racing toward the spot where the sun was hidden. Should I wait for it and essay a further snapshot?
As my eyes sought the sun, a bright flash in front of me, in my very line of sight, almost blinded me. A deafening explosion and the whirr of scores of shrapnel bullets was followed by another flash. Crash! The second shell seemed nearer than the first.