the German trenches, a dense pall of smoke hung over the German
lines. The sickening fumes of lyddite blew back into the British
trenches. In some places the troops were smothered in earth and
dust or even spattered with blood from the hideous fragments of
human bodies that went hurtling through the air. At one point the
upper half of a German officer, his cap crammed on his head, was
blown into one of our trenches.

"Words will never convey any adequate idea of the horror of those
five and thirty minutes. When the hands of officers' watches
pointed to five minutes past eight, whistles resounded along the
British lines. At the same moment the shells began to burst farther
ahead, for, by previous arrangement, the gunners, lengthening their
fuses, were 'lifting' on to the village of Neuve Chapelle so as to
leave the road open for our infantry to rush in and finish what the
guns had begun.

"The shells were now falling thick among the houses of Neuve
Chapelle, a confused mass of buildings seen reddish through the
pillars of smoke and flying earth and dust. At the sound of the
whistle--alas for the bugle, once the herald of victory, now
banished from the fray!--our men scrambled out of the trenches and
hurried higgledy-piggledy into the open. Their officers were in
front. Many, wearing overcoats and carrying rifles with fixed
bayonets, closely resembled their men.

[Illustration: BRITISH INDIAN TROOPS CHARGING THE GERMAN TRENCHES AT
NEUVE CHAPELLE

Germany counted on a revolution in India, but the Indian troops proved