CHAPTER XX

A BATTLE FROM ABOVE

_Somewhere in the North of France, Thursday._

Dawn--not as we imagine it; but a dawn with God’s clear Heaven filled with every winged messenger of death. The very earth is shaken with agony, and the face of the sun is blotted out by heavy, choking clouds of picric smoke that hangs and hovers over the earth like a pall.

Far in the background rises a battle aeroplane. Nearer and nearer to the line it creeps, and without any attention from the enemy’s anti-aircraft guns. The German artillery is too much engaged in work of a more serious nature--the work of hurling back the irresistible lines of British infantry.

The frail craft passes over the lines, and meeting with no opposition sinks lower in long, sweeping circles, and finally appears to hover, as nearly as an aeroplane can hover, some two miles to the east and well over the enemy’s country. Then it is bombarded on all sides with “Archibalds,” now above, now below, now immediately in front, now immediately behind, but the machine continues to maneuver as if entirely oblivious of shell fire. Other swiftly moving shapes have now crept out from the direction of the British base, and all are hovering over different portions of the long line of muddy trenches, while the battle rages in all its fury.

All the varied operations of the extensive battle-field are as an open book to the watch in that frail craft ... the battle swaying backward and forward from trench to trench, the hand-to-hand combat in the open, the ding-dong artillery duel, and the hurried rush of supports and reinforcements. Nothing can be hidden from this peering eye above, that transmits the news by wireless to the great guns far in the rear, and to the headquarters, where the commander traces every movement of the battle on his map, like a chess-player planning his moves and counter-moves on a chessboard.

The enemy’s country is more heavily wooded and more broken than our own. Dotted here and there are small straggling villages. To the north, on either side of the road, are two small villages, now a mass of ruins. Between them is the tall chimney of a sugar factory, from which the black smoke no longer rises; and behind it, nearer the firing line, the long, ragged arms of a windmill move furtively in the slight breeze. To the south, and immediately in the rear of another small village, there is a large and straggling cemetery.

Woods, farms, a broken and distorted railway line, another factory, and a narrow winding stream, and the picture is complete. No! Not quite complete. Standing far removed from the main road is a large and densely wooded forest. The observer watches anxiously the stretch of British trenches immediately facing the wood. Then the barren, shell-swept land between the opposing trenches springs into life. Men and more men come swarming across the trenches and make for the German lines.

The observer watches anxiously the stretch of British trenches immediately facing the wood. There is a strange, unaccountable feeling in the air that, were it not for the never-ceasing roar of the aeroplane engine, would be hushed and silent as the moment prior to the start of a horse-race, when an element of overstrung expectancy pervades the human brain. Down below there, the lilliputian figures crouch like ants behind the mudbank, waiting for the dread signal when the race shall commence, the race of human life and death. The booming of the great guns in the rear has long since ceased, and the nebulous region of No-man’s-land, were it not for the battle-scarred earth, would resemble an ordinary peaceful countryside, so quiet and deserted has it become. The minutes tick slowly on and on. Now it must be getting very near the appointed hour. Will it never come? Restless movements are evidenced in the opposing trenches, where an occasional bayonet glitters in the sun, or strange figures wander to and fro. At last! With a shout and roar, they are over the top. The earth trembles. Then the barren shell-swept land between the opposing trenches springs into life. Men and more men come swarming across and make for the German lines. The scene now baffles all description, it is like a fleeting glimpse of Dante’s Inferno, as if all the hate and murder and courage and strength of human existence had met in one protracted struggle of life and death between savagery and civilization. The two opposing masses intermingle, so that now it is no longer possible to distinguish each from each.

At last there comes a lull in the battle, and the aeroplane pilot, his hazardous expedition concluded and at a sign from the observer, thankfully turns for home, leaving behind him a scorched and scarred earth from which the smoke rises continuously in curling white-gray clouds.