Part 8

In our trenches after seven o'clock on that morning, our men waited under a heavy fire for the signal to attack. Just before half-past seven, the mines at half a dozen points went up with a roar that shook the earth and brought down the parapets in our lines. Before the blackness of their burst had thinned or fallen the hand of Time rested on the half-hour mark, and along all that old front line of the English there came a whistling and a crying. The men of the first wave climbed up the parapets, in tumult, darkness, and the presence of death, and having done with all pleasant things, advanced across the No Man's Land to begin the Battle of the Somme.

THE END

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+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 61: siegneurial replaced with seigneurial | | Page 84: protuding replaced with protruding | | | | Interesting words in this document: | | | | A rampike is an erect broken or dead tree. | | Eyrie is an alternate spelling for Aerie. | | Tetter is a generic name for a number of skin diseases, | | such as eczema, psoriasis, or herpes, characterized by | | eruptions and itching. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+

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