When at last we were under cover the shelling ceased, having caused no casualties at our end of the line, although some damage had been done up among the leading platoon, now entrenched about 500 yards to our left, their left resting on Caudry.
From information received long afterwards, the explanation of this early morning attack is as follows: German scouts had, on the previous evening, already located our position in the village of Audencourt, and a battery, placed behind Petit Caudry either during the night or very early in the morning, had ranged the little square-shaped wood from the map, and as soon as their observation man, who was probably in the church tower at Bethancourt, saw No. 13 platoon marching past the wood, he signalled to the guns to open fire. (These guns were almost at once driven away by the troops occupying the village of Caudry.)
The ground in front of our trenches slopes gently down to the Route Nationale Caudry—Le Cateau, which at this point runs on an embankment and is lined with fine old poplar-trees. This road was our first-range mark—350 yards.
Beyond the road the ground rises at a fairly steep slope to the village of Bethancourt.
At the edge of the village, on the ridge of the hill, the gate-post of a small paddock was our second-range mark—900 yards. Between the Route Nationale and the village the land is open pasture, so that no accurate ranges could be taken between 400 and 900 yards. The ridge of the hill runs at a slightly decreasing slope down to a small wood; on the right of this is a stubble field, and to the right again, on the far ridge of the hill, are beetroot fields through which a telephone wire runs, the range being 1200 yards. Caudry was on our left, with the houses of Petit Caudry just visible on our left front; on our right the village of Audencourt, with two platoons entrenched strongly. Behind lay open country, stretching back about 400 to 500 yards to the road between Caudry and Audencourt; again beyond that for at least half a mile open country interspersed with small thickets.
For nearly half an hour after the shelling ceased the countryside resumed its usual aspect. First the church tower of Bethancourt, then house by house, the village itself came into the full light of the rising sun, whose rays soon reached our newly dug trench to cheer us with their summer warmth. Captain Lumsden came along to supervise the clearing of a field of fire between our end of the line and the Route Nationale.
Our trench was dug in a stubble field where the corn had just been stooked, and it was now our business to push all the stooks over. This gave occasion for a great display of energy and excitement. When the stooks had been laid low we made a very poor attempt to disguise the newly thrown-up earth by covering the top of the trenches with straw, which only seemed to make our position more conspicuous than ever. The trench was lined with straw, and we cut seats and made various little improvements. Then our guns began to speak.
At the corner of the village of Bethancourt there stands (or stood that morning) a farmhouse. In the adjacent paddock two cows were peacefully browsing. The first shell burst right above them. They plunged and kicked and galloped about, but soon settled down again to graze. Several shells hit the church tower; the fifth or sixth set fire to a large square white house near the church on the right. Our gunners made good practice at the two cows, and shell after shell burst over or near their paddock, from which they finally escaped to gallop clumsily along the ridge of the hill and disappear into the wood, no doubt carrying bits of shrapnel along with them. For at least half an hour our guns had everything to themselves, and it must have been a most unpleasant half-hour for those who were on "the other side of the hill."
About 9 A.M. the German artillery got to work. Many attempts have been made to describe the situation in a trench while an artillery duel is in progress, but really no words can give any idea of the intensity of confusion. On both our flanks machine-guns maintained a steady staccato. All other sounds were sudden and nerve-straining, especially the sudden rush of the large German shell followed by the roar of its explosion in the village of Audencourt, where dust and débris rise like smoke from a volcano, showing the enemy that the target has been hit.
The Huns evidently suspected that the little wood on our right rear is being used to conceal artillery, for they dropped dozens of shells into it, doing no harm to anything but the trees. The noise of the shells bursting among the branches just behind us was most disturbing. Sometimes these shells pitched short of the wood; they were then less noisy, but far more unpleasant in other respects. Just when the uproar was at its highest a scared face appeared over the back of my trench and stated that four ammunition boxes lay at the far corner of the wood at our disposal, please. The owner of the face, having delivered his message, rose up and returned whence he had come, doubled up yet running at great speed.