CHAPTER X[ToC]
ARRIVAL ON THE SOMME
FEEDING THE GUNS. SEPTIMUS D'ARCY ARRIVES. A CURIOUS KIT
Late that evening orders came to move into the trenches on the far slope of the Valley of Death. Trenches here, trenches there, trenches everywhere, while we groped around without knowing where the trenches led to, or the position of the German lines.
We spent an anxious night, the uncertainty of our position and mystery of those massed guns, thundering their wrath into the darkness of the night, caused a tension which defied any desire to sleep.
What was the meaning of it all? What was happening over yonder, where the iron of England's anger was falling, bursting, tearing, killing? What was happening over there? Would we receive a similar reply? The signs were significant: we were at last on the Somme; we were in for it with a vengeance.
The next morning broke bright and fair, and found us still awake with eyes peering anxiously through the rising mist. We were evidently not in the front line, but were there on the Somme; and that sea of shell-holes which everywhere surrounded us told its own story of what had been, and what was yet to be.
At about 11 o'clock all eyes were turned towards High Wood, on the crest of the hill to the left. A burst of shells from the enemy's guns told that a target had been found. We watched, and presently we could faintly see a column slowly moving along the road through the wood.