And dazed and sick, we gaze at the machines, and the steel and iron littering the ground blink up at us full of guile.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SWAMP
For the whole of the forenoon we had heard firing in the distance, the thunder of cannon and the rattle of musketry. Our regiment had been marched hither and thither. The fight had drawn nearer and nearer. We were expecting to be under fire at any moment, and then we had to fall back again, and look for a new place to develop our attack. It seemed as if the orders that came through were contradictory, and this tension of uncertainty fell like a blight on our spirits, and got on the nerves both of officers and men. At length we had wound through a defile, the steep slopes of which, left and right, were thickly grown with trees. Things had got into a bit of a mess. We had had to force our way through undergrowth soaked with rain, through brambles and clumps of tall broom on which the green pods were still pendent. At times there was nothing in sight except the roof and wall of greenery.
We breathed more freely when at last the sky spread clear overhead again.
So now we have reached a green meadow, and are marching straight across it, but are still unable to see anything of the enemy's forces yet. Even the firing has died down, and has become more distant than before. It seemed as if we had come into another, remoter world, and—so we have; for soon we notice how soft the ground has become under our feet, how water is oozing up at every step. We shall, if we go on, be right in the middle of a swamp.
That is the reason of the solitude reigning all around us.
The terrain is impracticable.
To the right and left of us, and all about us, nothing but swamp, running out into a broad sheet of open water, the depths of which no one can guess, or tell whether it be fordable.