"Our artillery observers are in there," explained Hauptmann Kliewer, "and the French must know it, for they've had a cross fire on it from right and left all day."
I watched the steeple with a new fascination. Shrapnel framed it in a soft billow of clouds, and lower, where grenaten struck the ground, I saw the dissolving blackish smoke. Would they hit it?
"They have fired a hundred shells at the tower since morning," laughed the Hauptmann. "They're not shooting very well to-day."
I forgot everything but the brown tower. I felt that any moment it must sway and topple over, but when we were told to leave, it was still standing. I wonder if it is there now. As we left the church and plowed through the mud to our motors, I saw a battalion of artillerymen drawn up before the little yellow headquarters, receiving their instructions. I caught one admonition not to be careless with ammunition, and then we were told that we were going to a battery. Down a road, where we saw five abandoned French caissons mired in a field, we had another experience with a most disconcerting sign. Hauptmann Kliewer's automobile stopped and seeing him get out, we followed, joining line in mud that came above our shoe tops.
"It is unsafe," he explained, "to take these motors any further. Knowing we were officers, the French would surely spray the road with shrapnel."
"Then the French observer can see us?"
The Hauptmann laughed.
"They've probably seen us from the moment we entered Houthem, and if our artillery hadn't been keeping them busy, they probably would have thrown some shells at our automobiles. But here we haven't even that chance. We walk to the battery. Separate yourselves at intervals of fifty paces so that if a shell drops on the road we won't all get it."
Too business-like a tone had come into his voice to let you think he was fooling. At once his manner became that of the officer in action, terse and taking instant obedience as a matter of course. We spread out. I found myself walking with Poole. We were approaching a high-banked railroad track, the road disappearing under a trestle. I suppose the field must have been strewn with the objects of war. I did not see them. I was staring straight ahead at the sky, looking for shells, and getting ready to throw myself on my face—as I had been told to—if one came. And then, from behind the railroad embankment, came a terrific explosion and I was watching a whisk of grayish smoke trailing away. I stood for a moment unable to talk. The embankment was only a hundred yards away.
"Poole," I remember saying. "That was close."