Presently came the order:
"Reconnoitre!"
The battery was going into action. Once more I was unable to escape the little shiver of fear which follows this word of command.
In the firing position the battery was only masked by a hedge of brambles and some tangled shrubs, so that from several points of the horizon we must have been visible to the enemy. The position was not a good one, but it was the best the surroundings offered.
The officers had taken up their position near the first gun on a narrow path cutting across the plain. The battlefield opened out wide before us. But on the almost flat countryside which bore such an everyday aspect, and upon which we nevertheless knew the destiny of France was at stake, not a man, not a gun was to be seen. The thunder-ridden plain seemed to lie motionless under the shells.
We had covered our guns with sheaves; yellow under the yellow straw they might deceive at a distance. Besides, straw affords good protection against shrapnel bullets and shell splinters.
We at once fell asleep in the sun with the apathy of pawns who let themselves be moved, with that fatalism which is an inevitable result of the life fraught with hourly danger we had been living for a month.
I was awakened by a word of command. Behind us the sun was sinking.
"To your guns!"