So effective is the American artillery neutralisation of the German batteries, that it is between fifteen and twenty minutes before the first enemy gun replies to the terrific barrage. And though expected momentarily, a German counter barrage fails to materialise.
In our tree top we wait for the enemy's counter shelling but the retaliation does not develop. When occupying an exposed position, the suspense of waiting for an impending blow increases in tenseness as the delay continues and the expectations remain unrealised. With no inclination to be unreasonable, one even prays for the speedy delivery of the blow in the same way that the man with the aching tooth urges the dentist to speed up and have it over with.
"Why in hell don't they come back at us?" Griffin asks. "I've had myself all tuned up for the last twenty minutes to have a leg blown off and be thankful. I hate this waiting stuff."
"Keep your shirt on, Pete," Stanton remarks. "Give 'em a chance to get their breath and come out of their holes. That barrage drove 'em down a couple hundred feet into the ground and they haven't any elevators to come up on. We'll hear from 'em soon enough."
We did, but it was not more than a whisper as compared with what they were receiving from our side of the line. The German artillery came into lethargic action after the American barrage had been in constant operation for thirty minutes and then the enemy's fire was only desultory. Only an occasional shell from Kulturland came our way, and even they carried a rather tired, listless buzz, as though they didn't know exactly where they were going and didn't care.
Six or eight of them hummed along a harmless orbit not far above our tree top and fell in the forest. It certainly looked as though we were shooting all the hard-stuff and the German end of the fireworks party was all coloured lights and Roman candles. Of the six shells that passed us, three failed to explode upon landing.
"That makes three dubs," said Guahn.
"You don't mean dubs," Stanton corrected him, "you mean duds and even then you are wrong. Those were gas pills. They just crack open quietly so you don't know it until you've sniffed yourself dead. Listen, you'll hear the gas alert soon."
Even as he spoke, we heard through the firing the throaty gurgling of the sirens. The alarm started on our right and spread from station to station through the woods. We adjusted the respirators and turned our muffled faces toward the firing line. Through the moisture fogged glasses of my mask, I looked first upon my companions on this rustic scaffold above the forest.
War's demands had removed our appearances far from the human. Our heads were topped with uncomfortable steel casques, harder than the backs of turtles. Our eyes were large, flat, round glazed surfaces unblinking and owl-like. Our faces were shapeless folds of black rubber cloth. Our lungs sucked air through tubes from a canvass bag under our chins and we were inhabiting a tree top like a family of apes. It really required imagination to make it seem real.