Slightly wounded men began to trickle down the hill-side. One passed close to the subaltern, lurching unsteadily. He was bleeding profusely from a wound in the head. He stopped, swaying from side to side, and looked at the lieutenant with a glare of idiocy. "Hell," he said with sombre simplicity, "Hell," and then went on without waiting for a reply. The lieutenant was inexpressibly shocked. It made him feel ill. He turned and saw the wounded man walking like one blind, hands out, across the field. The one word, "Hell," rang in his ears. He nibbled at another biscuit to steady his stomach. "Pretty rotten that," he said to himself, striving to get rid of the sensation by classifying it. "Rotten."
Then the orders came. The gun-teams dashed up and in a few moments the battery was moving at speed to its left across the meadows. Its route was a diagonal directed on the ridge. It went in all haste. Its half-depleted wagons had been replaced by full ones from the first lines. The subaltern felt that he was rushing towards a crisis. He was strangely exhilarated as he galloped on towards a line of trees that rose to the ridge at right angles. A gate showed in the line of trees and beyond the gate a road. The battery slackened speed, dashed through the gate, vehicle after vehicle, and turned to the right towards the ridge. The road was narrow, walled with high hedges and overhanging elms. It mounted to a shrub-filled notch on the height. There the battery was halted. The half-filled wagons now composing the first line drew into cover. The battery-commander and several men rode on. The battery waited, screened by the wooded crest of the hill. From the unseen landscape in front arose an appalling tumult of sound. It was like the noise of a colossal conflagration; the roar of flames, and the crackle of burning woodwork enormously magnified.
Suddenly the battery moved on again. Quickly it mounted the crest and dipped down on the other side. Again a gate on the right hand and in a moment the battery was racing at full speed across a stubble-field. A hundred yards ahead galloped the commander. To their left was open country, full of sound. Above them, over the ridge upon their right, a run of sharp explosions broke out. The subaltern heard them without heeding. He shouted encouragement to his men as they dashed across the field, though his voice was scarcely audible to himself. He was in a whirl of excitement. Life hung on every second.
"Halt!" The guns stopped, were unlimbered and reversed in an instant. The teams raced back to cover. The wagons dashed up beside their guns. Around them one or two shells burst harmlessly upon the ground, like the first heavy raindrops which precede the storm. It broke. Overhead the sky collapsed with a fearful crash. The subaltern saw a myriad spouts of dust leap up from the stubble, saw his most trusted sergeant fall like a sack across the gun-trail. There was another riving crash overhead. The subaltern turned to hear an order megaphoned from the sergeant-major at the end of the line. "Guns in Action—Just below Church." He whipped out his glasses, focussed quickly for the church, saw a row of pin-points of flame flicker along a hedge. A moment later the air in front of him was shaken by a group of crashes, followed on the instant by a long, high-pitched drone. In the middle of it he heard the megaphone. "3350 yards—Corrector 140." The men worked desperately at the guns, like sailors in a blinding storm. The shrapnel beat down among them like hail, ringing on the shields. "Section Control." The subaltern gave the order. "Fire!" The whole battery fired swiftly, his guns among the first. He watched the distant hedge below the church through his glasses, saw a crowd of smoke-puffs burst over it even as the flame-points flickered again. He shouted an alteration of the corrector and his voice was swallowed by the crash of the hostile shells. Again the shrapnel droned, flicked up the dust around him. He heeded it not. He saw a man roll over with a shell in his hands. He sprang to him, seized the shell, thrust it into the breech without the loss of a second. Rapidly the guns fired. Away to his right he heard the quick detonations of the other guns and again the crash of bursting shrapnel. He gazed again at the distant hedge. It was a duel between that battery and his. Extinction was the portion of the one which failed in speed and accuracy. With a savage thrill he saw a high shaft of flame spout up behind the hedge. A shell—he claimed it as his—had plumped into an ammunition wagon and exploded. Wrought to fever-pitch, the artillery-men loaded and fired. A cloud of dust hung about each gun, obscuring the view, stabbed every few seconds by a sharp thrust of flame. Down the hill-side the smoke of shrapnel which had burst too low drifted close to the ground like steam from a passing locomotive. Away in the distance, along that hedge—the men in the battery saw only that, were oblivious to all else—a cloud of smoke gathered, grew thicker every instant. Under it the pin-points of flame flickered with ever longer intervals between the flashes. Over the battery on the hill the shrapnel burst with less and less of noise, less and less of accuracy. The subaltern exulted. They were getting the upper hand. He yelled stimulation to his men. His two guns fired faster even than before, raining shells at the hedge. Suddenly he was aware that the hostile shrapnel had ceased. Behind the hedge he saw a cloud of dust arise. Their enemy was retiring at speed. He altered the range, flung shells into the dust-cloud until it disappeared. "Battery Control—Stand fast." The guns ceased fire.
The subaltern turned to look at what he believed to be the wreckage of his battery. It was littered with dead and dying men. A wagon lay on its side, was being righted as he looked at it. Men pulled away a body from underneath. Every vehicle in the line, guns and wagons, was pock-marked with splashes of lead. The shield of one gun had been neatly perforated by a shell and the crew of that gun lay about it as they had been dispersed by the explosion. Their clothes were still on fire. The subaltern was staring stupidly at them when the lieutenant who never carried cigarettes approached. He opened his mouth to speak—no doubt to ask for another cigarette—when suddenly his expression changed to a sickly smile and he pitched forward. The subaltern turned round in a flash of savage anger. This was murder. They had finished fighting——
"Infantry advancing across stream—1800 yards," came the stentorian voice of the sergeant-major. The subaltern understood as he ran back to his guns. It was to repel the infantry that they were there. The duel with the other battery was merely an episode. He looked down into the valley below him, saw that it was filled with little grey figures. A stream bisected the mass. They were advancing quickly, in rushes, apparently without opposition. Some of the foremost were lying down, firing at the height. Below him, from origins that were hidden by a fold of the ground, rose the noise of a fierce and sustained rifle fire. The battery got to work again. Methodically, evenly, it sprayed that advancing horde with shrapnel. Other batteries, invisible to them, were helping, for a larger number of shells burst over the foe than they accounted for. The vicious little puffs of smoke multiplied. The subaltern watched their effect with cool, unemotional interest. It was like striking into a mass of ants. Numbers sprawled; the multitude was undiminished. He hurled his thunderbolts upon them like a god, himself serenely unassailable. A half-contemptuous pity for them arose in him but did not interfere with the exact performance of his duties. The men at the guns laughed.
Suddenly, without warning, the air above him was riven with a triple crash. The familiar drone followed, was blotted out by a second violent detonation. Gusts of smoke blew across the sky. A hail of shrapnel bullets kicked up the dust, pattered on the guns. His cap was knocked from his head by an invisible hand. A man at the gun sprang up, performed a grotesque parody of a dervish-dance, twirled with outstretched arms, and collapsed. Another sat for a second with both hands to his head and fell back. For a moment the service of the guns was suspended. The subaltern ran towards it, shouting. The diminished crew bent grimly to their task. The overhead crashes of the shrapnel came down in one continuous detonation. The bullets rained down upon them in heavy showers. The hostile artillery had got their range exactly. Where were they? The subaltern searched the distance for gun-flashes. He saw none. Their enemy was invisible, snugly tucked away somewhere. It would have profited little to have discovered them. His orders were to fire at the infantry and at the infantry his two guns fired, as fast as depleted squads could serve them. The rest of the battery fired likewise. He did not see how many guns were still in action, could not spare a moment to look. His attention was held by the swarm of advancing figures. The hail of shrapnel was an agony at the back of his consciousness; he ignored it, resolutely.
Suddenly a horse pitched and rolled, kicking violently, at his feet. It startled him. He had not seen it arrive. A man disengaged himself from the struggling animal, stood up and shot it dead with his revolver. It was the captain.
"In—command—at the infantry—section control—carry on," he panted, and ran to his place at the end of the line.
The battery commander was killed then! The thought flashed across his mind, was lost in the urgent business of the moment. He shortened the range, altered the corrector, aiming at the nearer edge of the approaching infantry. A moment later three or four men arrived at a sprint and reported themselves. The subaltern heard without emotion that more had started, would never arrive. He detailed them. The discharges of the guns followed faster.