There are men coming up the farther side of the slope--men going about
some normal business of the day as our men go about theirs in the places
behind their lines.

Those men are Germans; and the village in the trees, the collection of
buildings half guessed in the wood, is Courcelette. It has been hidden
ground to us for so long that you feel it is almost improper to be
overlooking them so constantly; like spending your day prying over into
your neighbour's yard. Away in the landscape behind, in some hollow,
there humps itself into the air a big geyser of chestnut dust. One has
seen German shell burst so often in that fashion, back in our
hinterland, that it takes a moment to realise that this shell is not
German but British. I cannot see what it is aimed at--some battery, I
suppose; or perhaps a much-used road; or some place they suspect to be a
headquarters. Clearly, it is not always so safe as it seems to be in the
green country behind the German lines.




CHAPTER XIX

TROMMELFEUER

_France, August 21st._


The Germans call it _Trommelfeuer_--drum fire. I do not know any better
description for the distant sound of it. We hear it every day from some
quarter of this wide battlefield. You will be sitting at your tea, the