We were spared all the business of caring for our own baggage and sent away at once.  With a French staff officer to guide us, we rode away at once toward the sound of firing—­at a walk, because within reasonable limits the farther our horses might be allowed to walk now the better they would be able to gallop with us later.

We rode along a road between straight trees, most of them scarred by shell-fire.  There were shell-holes in the road, some of which had been filled with the first material handy, but some had to be avoided.  We saw no dead bodies, nor even dead horses, although smashed gun-carriages and limbers and broken wagons were everywhere.

To our right and left was flat country, divided by low hedges and the same tall straight trees; but far away in front was a forest, whose top just rose above the sky-line.  As we rode toward that we could see the shells bursting near it.

Between us and the forest there were British guns, dug in; and away to our right were French guns—­batteries and batteries of them.  And between us and the guns were great receiving stations for the wounded, with endless lines of stretcher-bearers like ants passing to and fro.  By the din we knew that the battle stretched far away beyond sight to right and left of us.

Many things we saw that were unexpected.  The speed of the artillery fire was unbelievable.  But what surprised all of us most was the absence of reserves.  Behind the guns and before the guns we passed many a place where reserves might have sheltered, but there were none.

There came two officers, one British and one French, galloping toward us.  They spoke excitedly with Colonel Kirby and our French staff officer, but we continued at a walk and Colonel Kirby lit a fresh cheroot.  After some time there came an aeroplane with a great square cross painted on its under side, and we were ordered to halt and keep quite still until it went away.  When it was too far away for its man to distinguish us we began to trot at last, but it was growing dusk when we halted finally behind the forest—­dusky and cloudy, the air full of smoke from the explosions, ill-smelling and difficult to breathe.  During the last three-quarters of a mile the shells had been bursting all about us, but we had only lost one man and a horse—­and the man not killed.

As it grew darker the enemy sent up star-shells, and by their light we could sometimes see as plainly as by daylight.  British infantry were holding the forest in front of us and a road that ran to right of it.  Their rifle-fire was steady as the roll of drums.  These were not the regiments that preceded us from India; they had been sent to another section of the battle.  These were men who had been in the fighting from the first, and their wounded and the stretcher-bearers were surprised to see us.  No word of our arrival seemed to reach the firing line as yet.  Men were too busy to pass news.

Over our heads from a mile away, the British and French artillery were sending a storm, of shells, and the enemy guns were answering two for one.  And besides that, into the forest, and into the trench to the right of it that was being held by the British infantry there was falling such a cataract of fire that it was not possible to believe a man could live.  Yet the answering rifle-fire never paused for a second.