"Is that all? They are distributing their favours along our whole front."
At once a vast shroud of smoke rose and hid both lines, while out of it flew countless shell and roundshot. At first most of the Confederate missiles flew high and fell far behind our Crest. The two officers were coolly critical as they stood between the batteries.
"He must think our men are back of the guns like his own. The wall and bushes hide them."
"The fuses are too long," said Hunt quietly. "That's better and worse," he added, as a shell exploded near by and one of Woodruff's guns went out of action and the ground was strewn with the dead and wounded. "We shall want some of your guns."
Penhallow went in haste to the rear. What he saw was terrible. The iron hail of shells fell fast around him on the wide open space or even as far away as the hospital tents. On or near the Taneytown road terror-stricken wagon-drivers were flying, ammunition mules were torn to pieces or lying mangled; a shell exploded in a wagon,—driver, horses and a load of bread were gone. Horses lay about, dead or horribly torn; one horse hitched to a tree went on cropping grass. Penhallow missed nothing. He was in the mood peril always brought. Men said he was a slow, sure thinker, and missed seeing things which did not interest him. Now he was gay, tuned to the highest pitch of automatic watchfulness, as this far-sent storm of bursting shells went over and past the troops it was meant to destroy. Hurrying through it he saw the wide slope clear rapidly of what was left of active life. He laughed as a round shot knocked a knapsack off a man's back. The man unhurt did not stay to look for it. Once the colonel dropped as a shell lit near him. It did not explode. He ejaculated, "Pshaw," and went on. He came near the Taneytown road to find that his artillery had suffered. A score of harnessed horses lay dead or horribly mangled. His quick orders sent up to the front a dozen guns. Some were horsed, some were pulled with ropes by the cheering, eager cannoneers. Their way was up the deserted slope, "well cleared by the enemy," thought Penhallow with a smile. Once he looked back and saw the far flight of a shell end in or near an ambulance of the wounded beyond the Taneytown road.
During his absence gun after gun had been disabled and a caisson exploded; the gun crews lay dead or wounded. What more horribly disturbed Penhallow was the hideous screams of the battery horses. "Ah! the pity of it. They had no cause to die for—no duty—no choice." As he assisted in replacing the wreckage of the guns, he still heard the cries of the animals who so dumb in peace found in torture voices of anguish unheard before—unnatural, strange. The appalling tempest of shells screamed on and on, while the most of them fell beyond the Crest. Penhallow looked up to note their flight. They darted overhead shrill-voiced or hissing. There was a white puff of smoke, a red flash, and an explosion.
General Gibbon, coming back from the long line of his corps, said, "My men have suffered very little, but the headquarters behind them are in ruin. Meade has moved back." As he spoke the shells began to fall on the Crest.
"They seem to be more attentive to us," said the battery Captain
Woodruff. "Thought we'd catch it!"
"Horrible!—Those horses, Gibbon," said Penhallow.
At last there seemed to be more concentrated firing on the Crest. Many shells fell near the imperfect wall-shelter of the crouching men, while others exploded among the lines to left or right in the bushes.