Both telephonists were there awaiting him. The large-scale map was pinned out on a board, instruments upon it. The range-finder stood by the observation-slit. One of the orderlies was testing the telephone communication to the battery. Von Waldhofer pulled his glasses out of their case, pressed himself against the observation-slit and looked out.
Directly in front of him the bare ground with many minor undulations rose steadily to the shattered silhouette of the Bois de Foureaux on the skyline. But no longer was the view clear as when he last had gazed on it. Over all lay a haze which the early morning sun was powerless to penetrate. In the foreground and wide to right and left in the middle distance spurted and twinkled the primrose flashes of the guns, more rapidly multiplied than any eye could count. On the ridge the smoke lay thick, bellying in dark masses over the tree-stumps of the wood, poised on the horizon in tall, heavy-headed columns like elm trees in full foliage. In the air long bands of white shrapnel smoke reached out and clung to each other in a lazy drift, while among them the large dead-black bursts of heavy high-explosive shrapnel appeared suddenly, darted a head from the round nucleus and then unfolded themselves slowly and snakily earthward. Between him and the ridge the whole wide amphitheatre was being thickly sown with English shells. Near and far the smoke-columns shot incessantly into the air. Over the road from Flers to the Bois de Delville, which crossed his view at right angles, the white shrapnel puffs clustered in ever-renewed groups. Over all, English aeroplanes in scores flitted to and fro, daringly low yet apparently unchallenged. No longer did this arena appear untenanted. In every part there was movement and confusion of Lilliputian figures. Far away three tiny ammunition wagons raced towards a battery. Closer at hand, grey-clad infantry dashed in sections along the shell-swept road from Flers. They tugged low bomb-carts on long hand-ropes. He knew, subconsciously, that they were going to reinforce the great trench-line that stretched east and west from Martinpuich to Lesbœufs. Further afield other bands of grey midgets, scarcely visible, were rushing forward. Everywhere from the rim of battle-pressure grey figures were filtering in ragged streams down towards the lower ground. A long way off, on that rim, his glasses revealed a nodal point of confusion. He focussed on it. There were tiny grey figures grouped, in quick movement to and fro. Little smoke-dots were all round them. Then the confusion cleared. He saw darker figures, running forward, the twinkle of sun on a distant bayonet. For a moment he held them under view anxiously. Then with an impatient movement he swept his glasses round. Not there was the target that he sought.
Suddenly he arrested his sweep. To his left, much closer to him than he had been looking, a field battery topped a little rise, retiring at full gallop among a welter of shell-smoke. It passed down below his vision. His glasses remained steadily focussed on the rise over which it had come, fascinated by the abnormality, expectant of the cause.
It appeared. Slightly to the right of the course of the retreating battery, something emerged over the crest—something slow, ponderous, shapeless—drawing itself up. The silhouette of a gun projecting from its flank barred the sky. Swiftly he replaced his glasses by the range-finder. As he twisted the thumbscrews that brought the inverted vision into juxtaposition with the normal, he saw a group of grey soldiers surround the monster, hurl little puffs of smoke at it. He saw the gun slue, spit, saw soldiers who waved white rags tripping over those already fallen. The double visions met, he read the range. The thing drew itself up, turned slightly, creeping on its belly, snout in the air, like an uncouth saurian from the prehistoric slime. It was moving more quickly than he at first realised. In another instant he had taken the angle to the aiming post, plotted another, and was shouting orders to the telephonist.
"All guns 28·3 degrees left! Right half-section No. 1 gun 980 metres, No. 2 gun 960 metres! With percussion! one round! Fire!"
Through the range-finder he saw the burst of the two shells at the same moment that the detonations of the guns came to his ears. One fell full in the midst of the group of grey soldiery, whelmed them in black smoke. The other burst beyond. The thing paused not nor hurried. At an even pace it drew its low bulk along, dipped now for the descent.
"Right half-section 970 metres! Left half-section 960 metres! With percussion! Twenty rounds battery fire! Fire!"
Spout upon spout of black smoke heralded the rapid explosions of the guns. The monster was blotted out. Feeling like one engaged in a struggle with a creature born not in our time and space, of another world, von Waldhofer prayed for a direct hit. The smoke cleared. He looked for what should be its ripped and stationary bulk. It was not there. Only the grey bodies of the dead lay under the drifting fumes. The thing had passed onward, dipped into the hollow, out of sight.
He was suddenly aware that the enemy shell-fire, always heavy, had increased in intensity. The smoke-spouts shot up more numerously, grouped themselves more densely. Gradually they extended to new areas, abandoned those already covered. He realised in a flash that the monster was moving behind its special barrage, aeroplane directed from above. He shouted fresh orders, altering the range. Blindly he hurled his shells into the hollow behind the screen of smoke.