Now, other members of the platoon had worked their way along the ground and near to where Hicks lay. Bullets spattered furiously all around. Hicks minded them less than the perspiration which ran down his face in little, itching rivulets. He was near enough to the bullets for them to sound like breaking violin strings, as they whizzed past.
Wasn’t that another atrocious-looking helmet behind the bush to the left? He pressed the trigger, and a volley of shots heated the barrel of his automatic rifle. A bullet struck a few feet from him, kicking up a puff of dust.
He crawled on over the undulating ground. From another shell hole he poured out the last of his ammunition at the olive uniforms. Then he threw his rifle from him.
And now the platoon was scattered over the field, hiding behind bushes, behind little mounds of dirt, giving away their position by the slight curls of smoke from their rifle barrels. Not far ahead were the German snipers, waiting calmly and patiently and firing with rare judgment. The men on both sides might have been less human than Tin Woodmen, to judge from their silence.
Smoke from the artillery shells hung in gray volutes over the ridge. Puffs from the rifles curled thinly skyward, lost in the blue. The men were, to all appearances, motionless, soundless, only their rifles speaking for them.
Then, like an express-train rattling over loose ties, machine-guns broke loose from all sides. Their bullets struck the ground beside the men, covering the space where they were lying with a thick haze of dust.
The portly captain rose and blew his whistle, commanding the men to retreat. They needed no command. Already they were dashing off like frightened rabbits, scampering away to their burrows.
Hicks watched them for a while, felt the angry hail of bullets, then rose and followed after them.
In their desperation the men with the shovels and picks had dug a trench deep enough to protect prone bodies from fire, and into it the retreating platoon fell, released from the fear which, like an angry eagle, beat its wings behind them, against their heads, in their ears, urging them on. The men turned, narrowed out grooves in the thrown-up dirt for their rifles to rest on.