diagrams are reproduced far behind the front in elaborately prepared earthwork and trenches which are an exact replica of the enemy’s lines.  The divisions which are to take part in the attack are sent back to rehearse their exact duties at just the point corresponding to that which they will have to take.  Each officer knows every nook and crevice, each bay and angle of the trenches he will have to capture.  When all is ready the men are placed in their exact positions and they execute in reality what they have rehearsed in theory behind the lines.  The lesson of preparedness and organization is studied and mastered with infinite care.

CHAPTER IV

WITH THE BRITISH ARMY

I

In sheltered America we cannot realize what war means, but when we entered the warring countries of Europe, in an instant we were in a different atmosphere.  We landed in England upon a darkened coast, we entered a darkened train, where every blind was drawn lest it furnish a guide to London for invading Zeppelins or aeroplanes.  We passed through gloomy towns and villages, where not a single light was showing from a window, where every street lamp and railway station was darkened or hidden.  Automobiles with a dim spark of light groped through the black streets of the metropolis.

In London we saw a great Zeppelin brought down in flames.  It was a sight never to be forgotten.  At half-past two in the morning we were awakened by the roar of the anti-aircraft guns in and around the city.  After traveling all night from Germany, one Zeppelin had arrived over London and a whole fleet of them was scattered over the coasts and counties of England.

We sprang to the window and found the sky swept by a score of searchlights with their great shafts of piercing light, shooting from the dark depths of the city high into the sky, where they all converged on a single bright object that hung nine thousand feet above us.  Long, and shining like silver with its flashing aluminum, the Zeppelin seemed held as if blinded by the fierce light.  Bombs were dropping from it and explosions followed in rapid succession in the city beneath.

It was a battle to the death, high in the air with all London looking on.  The guns were in full play and the shell and shrapnel were bursting all about the Zeppelin.  Sometimes you could trace the whole trajectory of a projectile, as a spark of light swept through the sky toward the Zeppelin and then burst to the right or left, above or below it.  Most of the shots seemed to go wide of the mark.  More than a score of aeroplanes had been sent up to attack it, with one plane to guide the rest and signal to the guns below by wireless or lights.  The battle finally developed into a duel to the death between the machine guns of the Zeppelin and Lieutenant Robinson of the Flying Corps, who was up for two hours in his aeroplane after the enemy—­one man fighting for a city of five millions.  He attacked from below and bombs were thrown at his plane; then he attacked from the side as he circled about the monster, but he was driven off by their machine guns.  At last, mounting high in the sky, he attacked from above.  The guide-plane flashed down the signal for the guns to cease firing and give him a chance.