The shelling can be heard distinctly. It is the English batteries to the right of our section. They are beginning an hour too soon. According to us they start punctually at ten o’clock.

“What’s got them?” says Müller, “their clocks must be fast.”

“There’ll be a bombardment, I tell you. I can feel it in my bones.” Kat shrugs his shoulders.

Three guns open fire close beside us. The burst of flame shoots across the fog, the guns roar and boom. We shiver and are glad to think that we shall be back in the huts early in the morning.