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[Page 120]
dog tired, and the morning was cold. Oh, how I waited for the barrage to open up, it is awful the suspense waiting, waiting, and listening to the whit whit of a few stray machine gun bullets about. I noticed as we came up that the trenches were bridged or being bridged to the rear of us. There was much confusion amongst the men taking up their position, and a lot of shouting and swearing loud enough for Fritz to hear. A little after 3 oclock we heard the "chug" "chug" sounds and the tanks loomed up through the darkness. Then in the rear there was a sound like 3 or 4 trees crashing down in rapid succession, and then it broke out along the whole front; the air overhead sounded as if it was full of shells singing over to Fritz. It was wonderful; overhead the air was full of singing sounds intermingled with the squeals of odd loose driving bands, like a river rushing down onto his line; behind was a continuous low crashing rumble like a forest falling up, and in front one could hear the plug and burst of the shells. It was beyond imagination, I never thought there were so many shells in the world. One could not see the flashes for a dense fog, had arisen and blotted out everything. The Tanks moved forward and we girded our harness tighter and stepped off and none too lightly for we had nearly 100 pounds up, our equipment with 120 rounds