They
cleared the hill in a few moments, triumphantly seized four cannon and
then, still shouting, swept on.
John found himself shouting with the others. This was victory, the first
real taste of it, and it was sweet to the lips. But the regiment was
halted presently, lest it get too far forward and be cut off, and a
general striding over to Bougainville uttered words of approval that
John could not hear amid the terrific din of so many men in battle--a
million, a million and a half or more, he never knew.
They stood there panting, while the French line along a front of maybe
fifty miles crept on and on. The French machine with the British wheels
and springs cooeperating, was working beautifully now. It was a match and
more for their enemy. The Germans, witnessing the fire and dash of the
French and feeling their tremendous impact, began to take alarm. It had
not seemed possible to them in those last triumphant days that they
could fail, but now Paris was receding farther and farther from their
grasp.
John recovered a certain degree of coolness. The fire of the foe was
turned away from them for the present, and, finding that the glasses
thrown over his shoulder, had not been injured by his fall, he examined
the battle front as he stood by the side of Bougainville. The country
was fairly open here and along a range of miles the cannon in hundreds
and hundreds were pouring forth destruction. Yet the line, save where
the angle had been crushed by the rush of Bougainville's regiment, stood
fast, and John shuddered at thought of the frightful slaughter, needed
to drive it back, if it could be driven back at all.
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