In spite of having been told that the modern battle-field is empty, I had never imagined anything so desert like as this. Not a man to be seen in these fields which sloped gently downwards; it was abandoned territory.
The firing still continued to rage around us. We could even distinguish a distant crackling now, either rifle-firing or shrapnel, a sign that we were getting nearer.
When we passed by a Calvary, I saw some of the men sign themselves, Gaudéreaux and Trichet among others. They would never have done it during manœuvres. Why was I inclined to see in this Calvary one of the points which would decide the fate of the struggle? I think I must have been hypnotised by the remembrance of the one at Isly. I recollected Zola's superb pages in La Débâcle. Another passage which recurred to my mind was the description of Waterloo in La Chartreuse for which I had had a great admiration ever since my schooldays. I was tempted to compare myself with Fabrice. How far removed I was from his freshness of spirit, his youthful enthusiasm.
Guillaumin suddenly signed to me.
"Just look at that!"
Down below us, yonder, there rose a puff of smoke, then another nearer; a third; all in a line. They might have been little bonfires lit by an invisible hand. The bursting points of shells!
The noise of the short sharp reports reached us.
"Look out," Guillaumin whispered to me. "They're lengthening their range!"
We had stopped, silent and nonplussed. The captain galloped along the line.