casualty list, though serious, was much smaller than the difficulties of the operation and the strength of the forces opposed to us had permitted us to hope.

The artillery preparation for the attack was begun, by the heavy guns and howitzers, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon of September 14th. From that hour until 3 o'clock in the morning of the 15th the enemy's position was subjected to a deluge of high explosive. At 3 o'clock this fire diminished in intensity. At 4 o'clock it ceased abruptly. A sudden calm fell upon the opposing lines—a calm as full of menace in its sinister suggestiveness, like the core of silence at the heart of the cyclone, as the devouring roar of the bombardment. At the highest pitch of expectation our Battalions waited for the fateful hour of "zero time" creeping up with the dawn.