After lunching with the General I started off for Brigade H.Q. The weather was vile. It had been raining practically without break for several days, and was doing its best to upset everything and give us as much trouble as possible.
What an enormous number of munition waggons and lorries I passed on the road; miles and miles of them, all making for the front line. "Ye gods!" I thought, "Bosche is certainly going to get it."
I reached my destination about 2.30. What a "strafe" there was going on! The concussion of what I afterwards found out was our 15-inch howitzers was terrible. The very road seemed to shake, and when I opened the door of the temporary Brigade H.Q., one gun which went off close by shook the building to such an extent that I really thought for the moment a shell had struck the house.
"Captain ——, I presume?" said I, addressing an officer seated at a long table making out reports and giving them over to waiting dispatch riders. The room was a hive of industry.
"Gad, sir," he said, "are you the kinema man? I am pleased to see you. Take a seat, and tell me what you want. You are the last person I expected to see out here. But, seriously, are you really going to film 'The Day'?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Where do you propose to take it?"
"General —— suggested 'Jacob's Ladder.'"
"What?" came a startled chorus from about half a dozen other officers. "Take photos from 'Jacob's Ladder,'" they repeated in tones of amazement. "Good Lord! it's an absolute death-trap. Bosche strafes it every day, and it's always covered by snipers."
"Well," I said, "it certainly seems by the map to be an ideal place to get the mine going up and the advance over 'No Man's Land.'"