Instinctively I raised my arm to shield my eyes, as I always do; almost at the same moment I heard my friend, who was just by, call out that he had been hit in the shoulder.
Looking round I saw him stoop down and gingerly pick up a long, jagged fragment of shell lying at his feet. This was the piece that had struck him—it was almost too hot to touch.
He said he did not think he was much hurt, and that it was no use waiting there to do anything for it. So we lost no time in getting off before something more serious happened; we were only asking for trouble every moment we delayed.
As a matter of fact, although he made light of it, he had a nasty flesh wound; it turned out that the strap of his camera case, together with his thick overcoat and tunic, had undoubtedly saved his arm.
We had only gone a few yards when a remarkable state of affairs revealed itself: the road had disappeared, so completely was it hidden by trees and branches brought down by the shells.
It was positively startling to see such a transformation in the comparatively short time that had elapsed since we had come along it.
Here was a pretty fix, but luck favoured us in the shape of a soldier, who saw our predicament and indicated a way of getting round the obstacles and regaining the road further on.
I will candidly confess that I was not altogether sorry when we at length got out of range of the Austrian guns.
We had been under fire for more than four hours, and I had had about enough of it for one day.
There was a big stir amongst the troops bivouacked in the forest, and we passed several regiments on the road, which led one to infer that the artillery duel was to be followed up by an infantry attack on a large scale at nightfall, and so it turned out, as I afterwards learned.