From this distance, two miles away, the Fosse looks as big
as North Berwick Law. It is one of the many scattered about this
district, all carefully numbered by the Ordnance. There are others,
again, towards Hulluch and Loos. Number Eight has been the object
of pressing attentions on the part of our big guns ever since the
bombardment began, three weeks ago; but it still stands up--gaunt,
grim, and defiant--against the eastern sky. Whether any one is left
alive upon it, or in it, is another question. We shall have cause to
remember Fosse Eight before this fight is over.
The Hohenzollern Redoubt, on the other hand, is a most inconspicuous
object, but a very important factor in the present situation. It has
been thrust forward from the Bosche lines to within a hundred yards
of our own--a great promontory, a maze of trenches, machine-gun
emplacements, and barbed wire, all flush with or under the ground, and
terribly difficult to cripple by shell fire. It has been a source
of great exasperation to us--a starting-point for saps, mines, and
bombing parties. As already stated, this mighty fortress has been
christened by its constructors, the Hohenzollern. It is attached
to its parent trench-line by two communicating trenches, which the
British Army, not to be outdone in reverence to the most august of
dynasties, have named Big and Little Willie respectively.
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