He was riding by the side of de Rougemont, and he stopped singing long
enough to shout, at the top of his voice:
"No enemy in sight yet?"
"No," de Rougemont shouted back, "but he doesn't need to be. The German
guns have our range."
From a line on the distant horizon, from positions behind hills, the
German shells were falling fast, cutting down men by hundreds, tearing
great holes in the earth, and filling the air with an awful shrieking
and hissing. It was all the more terrible because the deadly missiles
seemed to come from nowhere. It was like a mortal hail rained out of
heaven. John had not yet seen a German, nothing but those tongues of
fire licking up on the horizon, and some little whitish clouds of smoke,
lifting themselves slowly above the trees, yet the thunder was no longer
a rumble. It had a deep and angry note, whose burden was death.
They must maintain their steady march directly toward the mouths of
those guns. John comprehended in those awful moments that the task of
the French was terrible, almost superhuman. If their nation was to live
they must hurl back a victorious foe, practically numberless, armed and
equipped with everything that a great race in a half-century of supreme
thought and effort could prepare for war. It was spirit and patriotism
against the monstrous machine of fire and steel, and he trembled lest
the machine could overcome anything in the world.
He was about to shout again to de Rougemont, but his words were lost in
the rending crash of the French artillery.
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