go through a summer shower--too proud to bend their heads, many of them,
because their mates were looking. I am telling you of things I have
seen. As one of the best of their officers said to me, "I have to walk
about as if I liked it--what else can you do when your own men teach
you to?" The same thought struck me not once but twenty times.

On Tuesday morning the shelling of the day before rose to a crescendo,
and then suddenly slackened. The German was attacking. It was only a few
of the infantry who even saw him. The attack came in lines at fairly
wide intervals up the reverse slope of the hill behind Pozières
windmill. Before it reached the crest it came under the sudden barrage
of our own guns' shrapnel. The German lines swerved away up the hill.
The excited infantry on the extreme right could see Germans crawling
over, as quickly as they might, from one shell crater to another, grey
backs hopping from hole to hole. They blazed away hard; but most of our
infantry never got the chance it was thirsting for. The artillery beat
back that attack before it was over the crest, and the Germans broke and
ran. Again the enemy's artillery was turned on. Pozières was pounded
more furiously than before, until by four in the afternoon it seemed to
onlookers scarcely possible that humanity could have endured such an
ordeal. The place could be picked out for miles by pillars of red and
black dust towering above it like a Broken Hill dust-storm. Then
Germans were reported coming on again, as in the morning. Again our
artillery descended upon them like a hailstorm, and nothing came of the
attack.

During all this time, in spite of the shelling, the troops were slowly
working forwards through Pozières; not backwards. Every day saw fresh
ground gained. A great part of the men who were working through it had
no more than two or three hours' sleep since Saturday--some of them none