huge cigar, indicating the places where shrapnel had exploded in
mid-air. Our men, not being familiar with the spectacle, took no
notice of it, but we officers knew its significance, and I daresay many
a heart beat as wildly as mine did.

We marched on until the command was given for us to deploy, and
soon afterwards the first shrapnel whizzed over our heads. It did no
harm, nor did the second and third, but the fourth hit three men in
the battalion in the rear of us. Our forward movement, however,
was not interrupted, and we did not see or hear anything beyond
two or three startled cries. The next shell burst right ahead of us,
sending a shower of bullets and steel fragments around. A man
about twenty yards to the right of my company, but not of my
platoon, leaped into the air with an agonizing cry and fell in a heap,
mortally wounded. As we were advancing very swiftly, I only saw it
as in a dream, while running by. Then came in rapid succession
four or five terrific explosions right over our heads, and I felt a
sudden gust of cold wind strike my cheek as a big shell fragment
came howling through the air, ploughing the ground viciously as it
struck and sending a spray of sand around.

We ran on perhaps a quarter of a mile, when from the rear came
the sharp command, "Down," and the next second we lay on the
ground, panting and exhausted, my heart almost bursting with the
exertion. Simultaneously the whizzing of a motor above our heads
could be heard and we knew why the enemy's shrapnel had so
suddenly found us. It was a Russian aeroplane which presumably
had signaled our approach, together with the range, to the Russian
gunners, and now was probably directing their fire and closely
watching its effect, for a chain of hills was hiding us from the view of