Besides, every
minute or two, all along the front, one could see the German or British
magnesium flares illuminating the trench-line. These flares are used as
one uses a bull's-eye on a dark walk. Just as you turn the bull's-eye on
any place which you are not quite sure of, so a flare-light is sent up
when either side suspects evil designs on a particular part of their
trench-line. The effect of the lights was very much like that of a
distant firework display, but the continual roar of the guns gave a
touch of anger and menace which made one realise that one was watching
war and not a Brock's Benefit. The roar of the artillery lasted all
night, and when I woke early in the morning it was still going on. Just
about five o'clock, however, it suddenly stopped, and I realised with a
thumping heart that the Australians and Kents and Surreys were going
over the parapet at Pozi?res.
At breakfast the Commander-in-Chief showed us a telephone message he had
just received from Pozi?res, saying that we had carried the piece of
trench which we desired to carry, and had inflicted considerable losses
upon the Germans without suffering too heavily ourselves. We had,
besides, taken several hundred prisoners.
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