"From O. C. Cavalry, to C.-in-C.:
"Enemy's advanced guard attacking me. Cavalry, infantry, and guns. Shall hold on for a bit, and then fall back."
"That firing to the west's getting louder, seems coming this way. God! it will be a near thing. Ah! there's Maitland coming back, about time too, I should say. Lord, what a stampede; and, by Jove, there are the enemy at last, up on the hill he's left, shooting after them. Shoot away and be hanged to you. Ha, ha, like that, do you?" as the six batteries in position on the ridge on which he was standing suddenly roared out together, and the crest ahead grew blurred with a mist of white smoke starred with tiny sparkles of flame.
"Keep it up, keep it up," he shouted, "long as you can; it's the last chance you'll have, for outed you'll be soon enough once Gabriel gets on to you. That's part of the game, though; if I made you too strong you might check Gabriel, and I don't want old Gabriel checked. I want him here."
"They've cleared, sir," said Godwin, suddenly pointing to the hill ahead, whence the figures had now disappeared. "No, there they are again—guns, sir, the whole crest's bristling with them."
"Time for umbrellas then, Old Un," answered Graeme, rising and sauntering away to a rock hard by; "it's going to rain pretty hard, and that rain will hurt if it hits. Come along, Bobby, what'll I do for cigarettes if you get outed?" and reaching the rock he flung himself down behind it, the other two crouching beside him.
Then with a sudden earthquake roar the storm burst, and the ridge seemed to tremble and rock. Over the sun a curtain seemed to fall; the green landscape vanished from before their eyes, hidden by a thick pall of sulphurous smoke, torn with crimson flame and alive with flying fragments of iron.
Crashing and shrieking, the huge shells thundered down on the quaking ground, throwing up great fountains of earth and splintered stone, splitting the trees, and seaming the green hill with ragged brown wounds.
Faintly to be heard through the tumult, the sharp thudding of the defenders' guns sounded in defiant answer, rapid and well-sustained at first, then intermittent, and at last sinking into silence. But still the tempest roared on, increasing in fury till blackness shrouded the vision and the brain was numb from the continuous crash and hammer of iron on stone.
A cloud of black stinking smoke eddied round the rock, under the lee of which the three were crouching, with handkerchiefs bound round their mouths and eyes streaming with grimy tears.