One cannot distinguish any one shell crater, as one can on the
pockmarked fields on either side. On the brown band the indentations
are so closely interlocked that they blend into a confused mass of
troubled earth. Of the trenches only broken, half-obliterated links
are visible.

Columns of muddy smoke spurt up continually as high explosives tear
deeper into this ulcered area. During heavy bombardment and attacks I
have seen shells falling like rain. The countless towers of smoke
remind one of Gustave Dore's picture of the fiery tombs of the
arch-heretics in Dante's "Hell." A smoky pall covers the sector under
fire, rising so high that at a height of 1,000 feet one is enveloped
in its mist-like fumes. Now and then monster projectiles hurtling
through the air close by leave one's plane rocking violently in their
wake. Airplanes have been cut in two by them.


THE ROAR OF BATTLE--UNHEARD

For us the battle passes in silence, the noise of one's motor
deadening all other sounds. In the green patches behind the brown belt
myriads of tiny flashes tell where the guns are hidden; and those
flashes, and the smoke of bursting shells, are all we see of the
fighting. It is a weird combination of stillness and havoc, the Verdun
conflict viewed from the sky.

Far below us, the observation and range-finding planes circle over the
trenches like gliding gulls. At a feeble altitude they follow the
attacking infantrymen and flash back wireless reports of the
engagement. Only through them can communication be maintained when,