Voices could now be heard under it and John spoke to de
Rougemont.
"Can you make anything of it?" he asked. "Do we win or do we lose?"
"It's too early yet to tell anything. The cannon only are speaking, but
you'll note that our army is advancing."
"Yes, I see it. Before I've only beheld it in retreat before
overwhelming numbers. This is different."
General Vaugirard beckoned to his aides, and again sent them out with
messages. John's note was to the commander of a battery of field guns
telling him to move further forward. He started at once through the
fields on his motor cycle, but he could not go fast now. The ground had
been cut deep by artillery and cavalry and torn by shells and he had to
pick his way, while the shower of steel, sent by men who were firing by
mathematics, swept over and about him.
Shivers seized him more than once, as shrapnel and pieces of shell flew
by. Now and then he covered his eyes with one hand to shut out the
horror of dead and torn men lying on either side of his path, but in
spite of the shells, in spite of the deadly nausea that assailed him at
times, he went on. The rush of air from a shell threw him once from his
motor cycle, but as he fell on soft clodded earth he was not hurt, and,
springing quickly back on his wheel, he reached the battery.
The order was welcome to the commander of the guns, who was anxious to
go closer, and, limbering up, he advanced as rapidly as weapons of such
great weight could be dragged across the fields.
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