Gradually the sad consciousness came that our advance was checked, but still the sacrifice was not in vain, for our gallant men were using up the forces of the enemy.
Ghastly were the stories which we heard from time to time.

One man told me that he had counted three hundred bodies hanging on the wire which we had failed to cut in preparation for the attack.

An officer met me one day and told me how his company had had to hold on in a trench, hour after hour, under terrific bombardment.

He was sitting in his dugout, expecting every moment to be blown up, when a young lad came in and asked if he might stay with him.

The boy was only eighteen years of age and his nerve had utterly gone.