“The cyclone cellar!” some one said.  “We will come here during the return fire.”

But one look down the crude steps decided me to brave the return fire and die in the open.  The cave below the flat roof, turf-covered against the keen eyes of aeroplanes, was full of water.  The officers watched my expression and smiled.

And now we had reached the battery, and eager gunners were tearing away the trees and shrubbery that covered them.  In an incredible space of time the great grey guns, sinister, potential of death, lay open to the bright sky.  The crews gathered round, each man to his place.  The shell was pushed home, the gunners held the lanyards.

“Open your mouth wide,” said the officer in charge, and gave the signal.

The great steel throats were torn open.  The monsters recoiled, as if aghast at what they had done.  Their white smoke curled from the muzzles.  The dull horses in the road lifted their heads.

And over there, beyond the line of poplar trees, what?

One by one they fired the great guns.  Then all together, several rounds.  The air was torn with noise.  Other batteries, far and near, took up the echo.  The lassitude of the deadlock was broken.

And then overhead the bursting shell of a German gun.  The return fire had commenced!

I had been under fire before.  The sound of a bursting shell was not a new one.  But there had always before been a strong element of chance in my favour.  When the Germans were shelling a town, who was I that a shell should pick me out to fall on or to explode near?  But this was different.  They were firing at a battery, and I was beside that battery.  It was all very well for the officer in charge to have said they had never located his battery.  I did not believe him.  I still doubt him.  For another shell came.

The soldiers from the farmhouse had gathered behind us in the field.  I turned and looked at them.  They were smiling.  So I summoned a shaky smile myself and refused the hospitality of the cellar full of water.

One of the troopers stepped out from the others.

“We have just completed a small bridge,” he said—­“a bridge over the canal.  Will madame do us the honour of walking across it?  It will thus be inaugurated by the only lady at the front.”

Madame would.  Madame did.  But without any real enthusiasm.  The men cheered, and another German shell came, and everything was merry as a marriage bell.

They invited me to climb the ladder to the lookout in the tree and look at the enemy’s trenches.  But under the circumstances I declined.  I felt that it was time to move on and get hence.  The honour of being the only woman who had got to the front at Ypres began to weigh heavy on me.  I mentioned the passing of time and the condition of the roads.

So at last I got into the car.  The officers of the battery bowed, and the men, some fifty of them, gave me three rousing cheers.  I think of them now, and there is a lump in my throat.  They were so interested, so smiling and cheery, that bright late February afternoon, standing in the mud of the battlefield of Ypres, with German shells bursting overhead.  Half of them, even then, had been killed or wounded.  Each day took its toll of some of them, one way or another.