We, looking back now over a space of twelve months, know how our boys answered that question.  In the greatest and longest battle that the world had yet seen, that Army of city clerks, Midland farm-lads, Lancashire mill-hands, Scottish miners, and Irish corner-boys, side by side with their great-hearted brethren from Overseas, stormed positions which had been held impregnable for two years, captured seventy thousand prisoners, reclaimed several hundred square miles of the sacred soil of France, and smashed once and for all the German-fostered fable of the invincibility of the German Army.  It was good to have lived and suffered during those early and lean years, if only to be present at their fulfilment.

But at this moment the battle was only beginning, and the bulk of their astounding achievement was still to come.  Nevertheless, in the cautious and modest estimate of their Commander-in-Chief, they had already done something.

After ten days and nights of continuous fighting, said the first official report, our troops have completed the methodical capture of the whole of the enemy’s first system of defence on a front of fourteen thousand yards.  This system of defence consisted of numerous and continuous lines of fire trenches, extending to depths of from two thousand to four thousand yards, and included five strongly fortified villages, numerous heavily entrenched woods, and a large number of immensely strong redoubts.  The capture of each of these trenches represented an operation of some importance, and the whole of them are now in our hands.

Quite so.  One feels, somehow, that Berlin would have got more out of such a theme.

* * * * *

Now let us get back to our O Pip.  If you peep over the shoulder of Captain Leslie, the gunner observing officer, as he directs the fire of his battery, situated some thousands of yards in rear, through the medium of map, field-glass, and telephone, you will obtain an excellent view of to-morrow’s field of battle.  Present in the O Pip are Colonel Kemp, Wagstaffe, Bobby Little, and Angus M’Lachlan.  The latter had been included in the party because, to quote his Commanding Officer, “he would have burst into tears if he had been left out.”

Overhead roared British shells of every kind and degree of unpleasantness, for the ground in front was being “prepared” for the coming assault.  The undulating landscape, running up to a low ridge on the skyline four miles away, was spouting smoke in all directions—­sometimes black, sometimes green, and sometimes, where bursting shell and brick-dust intermingled, blood-red.  Beyond the ridge all-conquering British aeroplanes occupied the firmament, observing for “mother” and “granny” and signalling encouragement or reproof to these ponderous but sprightly relatives as their shells hit or missed the target.

“Yes, sir,” replied Leslie to Colonel Kemp’s question, “that is Longueval, on the slope opposite, with the road running through on the way to Flers, over the skyline.  That is Delville Wood on its right.  As you see, the guns are concentrating on both places.  That is Waterlot Farm, on this side of the wood—­a sugar refinery.  Regular nest of machine-guns there, I’m told.”