"Sounds more like a dirge," said Wharton.
"A dirge for the other fellows."
"Do they keep their legs bare so they can run fast?"
"Yes, after the enemy."
John smiled.
"You're true blue, Carstairs, old fellow," he said. "What do you see, Wharton?"
"Germans, Germans, and then more Germans. Germans on the right, Germans on the left, and Germans in the center, always Germans. They're advancing by kingdoms, grand dukedoms, dukedoms and principalities. The whole circle of the horizon is gray with them."
The three were mounted and ready for orders. Aloft swung the aeroplanes and over the hostile front hovered those of the Germans also. John had little to do, but; as he rode slowly back and forth with the others, he heard the light talk and the jesting among these troops who spoke English. Although he knew that they underrated the danger he was proud of them, and he remembered that his transplanted blood and theirs were the same.
His eyes turned back to the gray sea, coming forward like the tide across the open fields. It's edge was yet far away, but the sunlight was so bright and the columns so deep that he saw them plainly. As in the battle with the French they made upon him the impression of irresistible strength. He saw too that their tremendous line would overlap the British on both left and right, and he was assailed by a sudden and deadly fear that they stood in the presence of the invincible. But his strong will took command of his imaginative mind, and his face seemed calm as he sat on his horse with the others and watched the advancing foe.
Rifles were already crackling in the valleys between, where the pickets were seeking the lives of one another, and now came the deep, rumbling thunder of the giant cannon as they threw their shells from a range of eight or ten miles. When a shell burst there was a crash like that of a volcano in eruption, great cavities were torn in the earth, and men fell in dozens. Vast clouds of smoke from the monster guns began to drift against the horizon, but nearer where the smaller guns were at work only light white clouds appeared.