"What we waiting for, cap'n?"
"Don't know. Here. Where's your cartridge-belt? Stay where you are. Who's that down? Hand up his belt."
A shout came up the line, like the ripple of a shaken rope. They were suddenly in the woods. Men jumped from the ground and joined. They were in another field of grass. One heard nothing more but the thump of his own feet and the singing blood in his ears; not the throb of the artillery; not the cry of the man who threw up his arms and fell against him; not the discharge of his own rifle, though he saw the smoke, and with the next stride his face went through the smoke.
It was easy running in the grass, the long, level fields, a fence now and then, a stone wall; but then came a slope and ploughed ground, where one stumbled and fell with his face in the brown dirt, and fancied himself hit in the pit of the stomach—only, why not dead?—saw the lines gone on; got up, and ran after to the edge of a field of standing corn. A fenced road was beyond, a white building with a central, squat chimney, overhung by heavy woods full of smoke. The lower part of the smoke bellied forward, jumped, and trembled at the edge.
There seemed to be singularly few in the running line now. One seemed, in fact, to be running back unaccountably, down the slope and the ploughed ground, into another triple line, a surf of guns, caps, hot faces, and innumerable legs. One seemed to be caught up and rushed back, ploughed ground and slope, and lined up at the top, there loading and firing across the corn. Comparatively it was restful, mechanical. To find one's cartridge-belt empty at last was a disappointment. It seemed to imply the need of doing something else, something new and untried. The smoke in the woods ahead was thinner.
"I guess Johnnie's belt's empty, too."
"I guess we're going in to see. Here we go!"
They ran into the corn. One did not feel military—rather, happy-go-lucky. The enemy behind the fence and in the road all ran away to the woods, where there seemed nothing much going on. It looked like a gaping mouth, the tree-trunks like black teeth, and the smoke from the blacker throat drifted between the teeth. It seemed to have sucked in its hot breath and red tongue—to be waiting. The fence was nearly reached when it let go a thousand red tongues, a voice that crashed, a breath that was hot and smoky, that jumped and trembled. One dropped behind the fence and felt for cartridges.
"Hi, Jimmie! Going to get out o' this."
"Close up, men. Steady there."