"If they come, so much the better!" cried Eberstein. "We will annihilate them. But I do not for a moment believe——"
He was stopped by a heavy distant roar that commenced with the suddenness of a thunderclap and continued in one never-ending roll.
"There we are!" exclaimed von Waldhofer. He looked at his watch. It marked 7 o'clock precisely.[7]
A moment later the telephone bell rang in an excavated offshoot of the main dug-out. The orderly on duty there answered the call. "Message from the observation officer!" he announced in a loud voice. Eberstein picked up the receiver lying on the table in front of him.
"Yes?"
"Intense artillery fire all calibres upon entire sector. Whole front being heavily bombarded. Infantry attack expected momentarily."
Eberstein repeated the message, and ere he had finished the battery commander had sprung to the door of the dug-out, shouting his orders. He heard them megaphoned on by the sergeant-major above. Out there in the first rays of the sun the four squat idols had shaken aside their veils, lay surrounded by tensely waiting acolytes. The moment for their dread speech was at hand.
In the electric-lit dug-out the two officers sat silently listening to the distant storm. It rolled in one unnerving continuous thunder. Not their duty was it to reply. They were detailed for barrage upon a particular sector. But near at hand the heavy detonations of guns told off for counter-battery work followed one another ever more quickly. Near at hand, too, came the long whine and crash of the English counter-battery shells hurled in reply.
Again the bell rang and again the telephone orderly called out. "Speak to battalion commander,[8] please!"