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[Page 42]
a sky, jonquil yellow at the horizon and grading through pale sea-green to sapphire. Over the horizon hung bales of cuttlefish pink clouds and under them like stars having a game of tag the shrapnel burst in countless twinkles. On our left, a road-strafe was in progress and Jerry had the range well, for the bursts ranged alongside each other like men falling in on parade. On the opposite side of the little valley on whose side we were standing, some batteries there were sparking away and giving Jerry trouble for soon he began to search for them, his heavy stuff, coming over regularly and with fair accuracy. There was some traffic on the road and a motor lorry which evidently was on urgent business took a chance, put on a spurt and got past the shelling place between two bursts. It didn't dally any - b'lieve muh. Some well-aimed or lucky shot of ours hit one of Jerry's flare dumps which at once began to give off white, pearly smoke in a column of great volume, garnished round the edges with a passementerie of exploding flares, which are pretty little star-like rockets.
Every now and then a catastrophic burst of sound behind me reminded me that a big gun in the woods behind us was still going strong. Unfortunately I would forget it between shots and so get a rotten shock each time. I duck each time; I confess, I can't control myself. I'm not like these tough young veterans who don't betray any sign of knowledge of the existence of such things until you say "Where did that one go to 'Erbert"? Then they say, "Oh, a hell of a bloody long way off". Then someone comes in and says "I think, perhaps, we better shift them horses; that last (wheelbarrow) didn't go too (wheelbarrow) far off the (wheelbarrows) sir". But that is exceptional, for this is a quiet place.
All day long you can hear, as if it were the fall of rollers on a steep beach the never-ceasing crash of his and our guns. But at night this "break, break, break, gives place to booms, thuds, grunts, cracks, roarings, smashings, and bellowings, wailings, howlings, whinings and dronings. It's all very wonderful and mysterious and awful. Jerry came over last night after those batteries, but I don't think he did much good, for after dropping