just before the great vimy ridge offensive a crowd of us stood on a small hillock beside our camp, which is in a wood six or seven miles behind our lines, to watch the "earthquake" that was to open on thelus at 3 p.m., and of which we had been told by brigade. the "earthquake" was to take the form of a bombardment of thelus,—a small town one mile behind the german lines, opposite our front, and which, from the lines, we could see very distinctly with the naked eye,—by every gun of ours that could throw a shell into it. as guns here are much more numerous to the square mile than they were even at the somme, and as others are going forward day and night, some so large that it takes eight or ten horses to pull them, and as ammunition goes forward at the rate of three or four hundred motor lorries full daily for each mile of front, this means indeed an earthquake.
we stood on the hillock at the "zero" hour, and on the stroke of three, shells began to burst on the skyline. some, high explosives probably, caused those immense black upheavals of earth which, except for their color, remind one of nothing so much as the spouting of a whale at sea. others bursting higher in the air, shrapnel very likely, left large, white, fleecy clouds just above the skyline, and a third type burst with a flash of flame, and left brown clouds of smoke in their wake.
higher in the air, all along the front, some near, some far, some ours, and others the enemy's, hung nine immense observation balloons; and soaring in and out among them were twenty-one aeroplanes by actual count at one moment. some of them were being shelled, for fluffy clouds of smoke were about them showing the bursting shells from anti-aircraft guns, and while we watched two machines engaged in one of those ever-interesting air duels, out of which one of them came nosing down into the earth. whether it was our machine or an enemy we could not tell at the distance.
even the sights on the earth were of interest. the tall gothic towers on the hill at mt. st. eloy were silhouetted against the blue of the sky, on our right. on the extreme left was an emaciated forest, standing out against the horizon; and between these two land-marks were countless acres of cultivated ground, just about to give forth the first sprouts of the hoped-for harvest. here and there the white walls of the limestone farm houses, with their red-tiled roofs, broke the monotony; and about the center of the picture a group of them with the shell-shattered spire of a church in their midst formed the village of villers aux bois. to the left of this latter place lay a peaceful cemetery with some two thousand graves of british, french, and canadian soldiers who had given up their lives on the blood-stained soil of france in the cause of liberty. distinctly we could see through glasses a padre saying prayers for the dead over the bodies of some of the allied soldiers which were being laid in the newly-dug graves.
beyond the cemetery a road twisted here and there, and along it hurried from time to time motor ambulances, with the large, red cross on their sides; motor lorries, full of food and munitions; limbers, painted in vari-colored patterns, and looking like a calithumpian procession, to make them inconspicuous against the earth to the german aviators; large guns drawn by strings of horses; pack mules with their burdens of shells; and motor cyclists hurrying forward or rearward with messages.
and all this in the cause of the great god, mars!
