"This is the fastest firing we've ever done," said one breathless officer.
Further to the right was the house where the correspondent spent several days and nights a month ago. It is ruined now, but batteries are still there, and they, too, were spouting fire and smoke.
To the left new batteries had opened and the din was terrific. It was hard to resist the impulse to put one's fingers in one's ears. A glance at the watch showed that it lacked barely five minutes of the "zero" hour. Those five minutes passed more rapidly, and yet more slowly, than any I had ever experienced.
Ahead was a green slope dotted with trees, up which our infantry was to advance. It was bare and empty. It seemed incredible that in a few minutes our men would be there. The second hand crawled, yet raced, around the dial. It rested on the figure 10 and we looked at one another. "They're over," we whispered.
We looked up from our watches to find that the smoke clouds had drifted down the slope until the whole country for miles about Cantigny was obscured by shifting, changing vapor from the great caldron toward which our unseen men were plunging. We almost groaned our disappointment, for in a moment there came a little rift in the smoke, revealing something moving on the ground.
Imagine looking at the teeth of a black comb through a wire screen and having some one pass the comb slowly before your eyes. That was what it looked like—those black teeth, our men, were screened by the shifting smoke. It was only the tiniest glimpse. Then the smoke drifted over and rose again, but we had seen them going forward and upward to Cantigny. After a time the smoke spread still further. Nothing remained to be seen.
ALL WENT AS REHEARSED
Walking back along the road, where now there were a few belated boche shells coming, the heavy artillery officer said: "From my observation post we could see them for a couple of minutes. They went just the way they rehearsed, just walked along slowly, keeping in fine alignment. We could see two of the three waves and not a single man out of place, following the barrage like veterans. We could even see an individual man sometimes."
Beside the road ambulances were waiting. From overhead an observer came sweeping down to drop a message near a white marker on the ground. He leaned out of his seat and waved his hand; then the machine soared up again. Evidently all was going well. Other planes were hovering over Cantigny.
As we entered headquarters all about the guns were crashing and flashing. Headquarters was an underground hive swarming with activity. Officers were hugging telephones or were bent over maps under electric lights. Some were in khaki and some were in light blue. The first of these latter was Lieut. Col. de Chambrun, a descendant of Lafayette. "It goes well," he said, and a moment later an American officer called from a telephone: "They can see the boche throwing down his arms in Cantigny." After that the messages came thick and fast: