"Confound it!" said he, "we don't seem to be getting on!"
In the afternoon, on an order from the division, the Major commanded the limbers to be brought up.
The drivers arrived on horseback, at a trot.
"Dismount!" shouted the Captain.
They did not hear. Bullets, skimming over the crest, still whistled by. They would inevitably be killed.
"Now then, altogether," said the senior N.C.O.... "One ... two ... three.... Dismount!..."
Twenty voices were raised in a single shout. This time they heard, and, without stopping the limbers, the drivers hurriedly tumbled off their horses.
We took up a fresh position still nearer the enemy between two lines of poplars in a meadow overgrown with tall grass. Almost immediately the 77 mm. guns, which since the morning had been searching for us without success, began to threaten our battery. The enemy could not have seen our movements, and no aeroplane was visible aloft. Had our position been signalled by a spy?
A foot-soldier passed, holding his abdomen with both hands and shifting from one foot to the other in the throes of intense suffering.