Part 4

Though the elements seemed at peace, there was clear evidence that man was not, for here and there could be seen the angry glow of a conflagration with its pall of black smoke. In places the dirty-white dust-clouds betrayed the movement of masses, though the masses were not visible, while over certain spots thick clusters of smoke-puffs, suddenly breaking out like signal flags from the halliards of a ship, showed where shrapnel shell were raining down destruction. These puffs were of different colours--the majority pure white, but others were of a purple and magenta hue as violet as aniline dyes. An occasional bright flash, followed by a dull detonation and an upshooting trefoil of black smoke, marked the fall of high-explosive shell. From the clamour that filled the air, one might have imagined that the whole countryside formed one large shipyard or boilermaker's shop, so metallic was the sound of musketry close at hand. Every moment this body of sound was stabbed by the nearer rifle-shots which rang out separately, and broken by the occasional throb of machine-guns, the mechanical beat of pom-poms, and the booming of artillery. But to an ear used to the noise of battles, there was one fresh sound--that of the quick-firing field-guns; for as they seized some fleeting occasion to pour out their squalls of shell, individual shots could not be distinguished in the continuous roar.

Notwithstanding this din in the air, it was difficult to see any signs of life. Of the work of man there was ample evidence; but of man himself--save those on the hill--there was no trace. Had a curious observer, however, walked some way down the bellying slope of the hill, he would have seen the backs of a long line of infantry digging for dear life near the bottom.

From all this turmoil down below, the little group at the top of the hill seemed strangely detached. No shell flew screeching over their heads, no bullet sang near them--they gazed on undisturbed. At last one put down his glasses and sat up with a grunt.

"We've been looking at the wrong place all along. We've been watching their flashes and bluff trenches on that rise. The guns are using flameless powder, and are a good deal closer--more to the left of the rough. I can just make them out, but cannot see how many there are."

"I can't see anything except the flashes which appear just where the trenches are," replied a second.

"Yes, of course, that's their game! D'you see that red and white farm?"

"Yes."

"Above that there's some water."

"Yes."

"Above that, still more to the left, on that hump covered with--"

"Yes, yes, I have them now; I should say there was more than one battery. They don't seem to be entrenched, either; but it is hard to tell on that background."

"There are more like twenty guns there," continued the first. "You may be certain they're entrenched--they're no fools. They have shown the dummies and hidden the real emplacements, which would not require much work on such a place as that--an ideal spot for guns."

"And so is this," added the third, the youngest of the three. "If it were not for their balloons, we could get a whole brigade up here unseen all the way, and suddenly open fire from behind this hedge. Even if they are entrenched, we could enfilade them and give them a bad time--enough to keep them quiet. If they're not, Lord help them, once we start!" He chuckled softly, and muttered fervently to himself, "Yes, Lord help them!" He was a Gunner.

He stared for a minute at the nearest balloon, silently and in deep thought, then taking off his hat, began absently to mop his head. Suddenly he stopped quite still, his head turned to one side as if listening.

"My God! it is rising!"

The two gazed at him in blank amaze, and, startled, at once seized their repeating-pistols.

"The wind, I mean--the wind. I feel it on my damp head!"

They still looked blank.

"Don't you see? If the wind only rises, down go those cursed balloons, and then--" There was no need to finish the sentence. The others jumped to their feet; one sucked his finger and held it up; the other picked a puff-ball and threw it in the air; all watched it gently wafted up the hill.

"Yes, look over there; that's more than haze--it's cloud!"

Toward the west there was now a low bank of gray cloud stretched across the horizon, against which the intermittent flashes showed bright.

"Whistle up the cyclist!" snapped out the eldest of the three, sitting down with notebook and pencil.

As the cyclist came up, he said, "Take this as quick as possible to the General of the 10th Division: he must be found; but if on the way you get near the officer commanding the Corps Artillery, show it to him and say I want him to read it."

After a minute they heard, as they got up, the snort of the motor breasting a rise on their left, and after three minutes there was nothing but the reek of petrol to show that any one had been on that hilltop.

They had gone and no one had noticed two small scoops in the ground--one under the hedge and the other farther along near the road--where ranging shell had fallen.

II

The wind has risen with the coming storm, and, above, the white clouds begin to chase each other across the blue sky. Out in the open and on the hilltops the trees are stricken by gusts of wind which rob the hawthorns of the last of their bloom. In the sheltered valleys there is peace and quiet, and under the lee of the hill the sultriness of the whole morning seems to have been concentrated.

The artillery brigade has now been waiting some time in that hollow lane between the high banks covered with wildflowers. Long enough to breathe the panting gun-teams, and for some of the gunners to dismount and pluck dog-roses, which they have stuck in their hats.

The still air in this little heat-trap, heavy with the smell of horses and the overpowering scent of May-blossom strewn on the ground, combined with the drowsy buzzing of the bumblebees--the gentle murmur of a hot summer's day--has a somnolent effect on all except the animals, as they stand there zigzagged across the lane, the guns and limbers slewed to ease the strain. They present a succession of shiny quivering skins, and tails switching in a vain endeavour to drive off the hovering swarms of flies who divided their attention between the backs of the men and the horses. Though there is no conversation, for the men--here and there chewing a biscuit or taking a sparing drink from their water-bottles--are all tired, yet there is a general air of pleasurable expectancy, for the nature of their present errand is now known to all. It is their first experience of active service, and the event now awaited is to be their baptism of fire. In the minds of the more serious, a slight though vague feeling of apprehension--running like the coloured thread through the lay of a rope--adds zest to their suppressed excitement, for many and wonderful have been the yarns going the round of the barrack-rooms as to the powers of the enemy's quick-firing artillery. Here a more phlegmatic man has lit his pipe and wastefully thrown the match away, to burn to the end among the nettles on the bank--a thing which alone is sufficient to show that these are the early days of operations.

How the sun's rays pour down between the trees! How mercilessly they betray, even through the cloud of dust still hanging in the air, a hint of the more unpleasant side of war! The weary and lathered horses, the red and strained faces of the men, their peeled noses, the little runnels made in the grime on their cheeks by the perspiration as it streams down, the purple sweat-patches in the greenish-yellow uniform. Now and again, as if maliciously to accentuate the contrast between its dainty self and the crowd of men and animals sweating below, a pale butterfly flits aimlessly in and out of the shadows--sometimes nearly, but never quite, settling on a horse or gun.

The windings of the lane only permit a view of some hundred yards of its length at one time; but even this short distance offers an impressive sight. It is apparent, in spite of the dust and dirt, that the greater number of these men--some still on their horses, some standing, and some stretched out on the shady side of the road--are seasoned and in the prime of life; no mere boys, but men in the best sense of the word, sturdy and full-set. Even for gunners they are a fine lot; and during this lull preceding the coming storm, the sight of this little collection of splendid men and horses raises thoughts as to whether any other army in the world can produce their equal. Both men and animals are the last word in continuous training and scientific preparation applied to picked material. Not only are they good to look upon, but good to act. From the showy prettiness of a tournament driving competition to the serious business of getting on to the target, they excel; for here at this moment is collected the smartest brigade of field-artillery in the army--and that means, as they think, the smartest brigade in the world: they are armed also with the best guns in the world. There stand the guns one after another slewed across the narrow road, almost blocking it with their length. Wicked they look in their dusty greenish paint, with an occasional glint of steel where it has been scraped off. Even to the uninitiated these quick-firers have a more venomous appearance than the simple old guns; for, with their long, low-hung bodies peering mysteriously from behind their shields, they look like monstrous grasshoppers crouching on a hill. Ugly and venomous looking, they are the pride of their owners. Though he may not talk much about it, never has there been a true gunner who did not love his weapon and thrill with the idea of using it.

To those, now a little thoughtful on account of the legends concerning the enemy's wonderful quick-firing artillery, the sight of their own, whose powers they have so often tested on the practice-ground, is reassuring. They have the best gun ever invented, and at speed of ranging and accuracy of fire they are unequalled. What more? Are they not going to catch the enemy unawares? And to be caught unawares by a squall of shrapnel from modern quick-firers means extinction.

To the officers, the exact nature of the present task is known, and the possibilities of the occasion better appreciated--for though as yet without personal experience in war, they know to what a pitch all the nations have brought their quick-firing artillery, and what is expected from its "_rafales_," "_tir rapide_," "_schnell feuer_"--call it what you will--upon an exposed and unsuspecting enemy. They are standing alongside the horses, one feeling his animal's legs, another loosening a girth, but the majority cheerfully talking in little groups.

At last the dreary wait is over, a flag flickers from one hill to the other. "The enemy's balloons are down." With a sigh of relief the order is passed, and the brigade moves on, slowly at first, then breaking into a trot, for its destination is still some way off, and time, tide, and the chances for quick-firing artillery wait for no man.

The message has come down from the youngest of the three officers who were making the reconnaissance under the hedge two hours ago. For the past hour he has been watching those malignant balloons from that same spot, and whistling for the wind. As the wind has risen, so have his spirits. It is a difficult thing to gauge the height of an object in the air, and several times he has thought that the balloon nearest the enemy's guns seems lower than it was, only to find out he is wrong.

The cloud-bank to the west grows larger, and as its ragged edge creeps up over the blue sky, the dark background shows up the glistening balloons the more brilliantly. The two farthest off are coming down--there is no doubt about it--and at last the nearer one seems lower. Yes--it is! Down, down it sinks. When it is quite close to the ground he waves to a signaller behind the road, who passes on the message, and so back it goes to the waiting brigade.

He crawls behind the hedge for a moment to watch the range-takers, who have been up here for the past half-hour and have taken and checked and rechecked the distance to the enemy's guns. Some men with tools also, who have uprooted the gate-posts, and widened some openings from the lane on to the hilltop, are now cutting little windows through the hedge on the brow. A few officers arrive ahead of the batteries, and to these he points out their positions and the target and range.

All is ready, and the head of the column is even now jangling up the hill.

III

The same landscape as watched by the three under the hedge, but viewed from the other side. In the foreground, half hidden among the patches of gorse on a gentle slope, is a long irregular line of perhaps twenty guns. It is difficult even at this short distance to count their number, for they are dotted about here and there amongst the clumps of cover. Though of a grayer hue, they have a strong family resemblance to those others resting in the little lane on the hillside. By each is a water-bucket, the purpose of which is shown by the damp earth round the gun, and the absence of dust. Alongside also are little shelter-pits dug for the gun detachments, the bright yellow of the freshly turned earth artfully concealed with pieces of bush. The guns, the limbers, and the very horses themselves--over there in the rear--are embowered in greenery. The incongruous Jack-in-the-Green appearance thus given to these engines of destruction seems at first ill-timed foolery. It strikes a jarring note, as does laughter in the presence of death. Overhead, to one side of the line of guns, a huge yellow balloon sways in the rising wind and strains at the cable which slants away down to a small collection of wagons in a convenient hollow.

To the general din of battle all round is periodically added the roar of some of the guns in the line as a target worthy of a "_rafale_" of shell is found. The paroxysms of noise indulged in at intervals by these quick-firers are the only sign they give of their action, for they neither belch out flame nor kick up dust. Each fresh outburst seems to call up an echo from the direction of some absurdly ill-concealed earthworks about half a mile to the rear. The enemy are shooting badly. Few shells fall near the guns, though many pass over with a shriek to burst in the neighbourhood of those conspicuous earthworks, whose parapet must be a very shell trap, so continuous are the explosions on it. An occasional heavy shell rumbles up from the South, and, passing over with the noise of an electric tram, detonates in a fountain of yellow earth near the same target.

Near the focus of these explosions are a number of men sitting at the bottom of deep holes, and from their occupation it appears that not all the explosions so close to them are caused by hostile shell. They are busily employed in setting off flash bombs just outside their yellow parapet whenever their own artillery fires. And as two more shrapnel from different directions whistle high above the much-decorated guns, and burst over the pits, it is clear that the latter are the targets aimed at.

This is the method in the madness of these troglodytes in their pits and of the other stage effects.

Some little way from his guns is a dried-up saturnine sort of man, dirty and anything but smart--the commander of the artillery. He is talking to a staff-officer, with occasional pauses as he stoops to gaze through a telescope mounted on a tripod, not to the southeast, in which direction his guns are firing, but toward the hills to the east. Close by sits another officer at a field telephone in a hole in the ground; such work is at the present moment too important for an orderly. From the instrument a cable, sagging from one bush to another in loops, leads toward the wagons near the balloon anchorage: this cable is the nerve leading from the eye up aloft to the nerve centre below. A few soldiers are sitting about. Not only do these men wear a different uniform from those other gunners now perspiring on that hillside, but they are unmistakably of a different race.

The Commander again takes a long look toward the hills where something seems to excite his apprehension, for he converses earnestly with the staff-officer, and the two look more than once toward a poplar tree the top half of which is visible above that hill on the East. The wind increases.

The distant balloons are already gradually descending, and a message shortly comes down from the observer above that it is too windy to remain up. The word is given, and slowly the great mass is hauled down to the depression near the wagons, where it is practically hidden, its approach to the ground being the occasion of special attentions from the enemy. Here, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, it is seized by many hands and bound. Hardly has it nestled, with much heaving of billowy sides, into its hollow, when the eye is attracted by something dancing up and down among the brushwood close to it. It is an oblong framework, partially covered with dirty gray canvas, which has commenced to make sundry abortive little swoops up into the air, ending in abrupt dives down again to earth. Finally this weird kite--for kite it is--makes up its mind and sails steadily upward to the tune of its whining cable-drum. Up, up it goes, holding well in the strong breeze till it becomes a mere speck in the sky. Another kite follows, then another, and again one more, threaded on the same cable, till with the combined pull it is stretched as taut as a piano wire, and hums in the breeze like the weather mainstay of a racing yacht.

The Commander walks over to the starting-point of the kites, where, sitting near an exaggerated clothes-basket, is a young officer. He is unshaven, his face is pale and drawn, and he appears worn out as he sips slowly from the cup of his flask, but as his senior approaches, he rises, salutes, and listens attentively to his somewhat lengthy instructions. He is an exceptionally slight man, and his general air of fatigue is explained by the fact that he has been observing from the balloon for the past three hours; the dark rings under his eyes show where the constant strain has most told. In spite of this he is again to go up in the kite, not because there is none other capable, but because the advantage of having up aloft a pair of eyes that already know the lie of the country is at the present juncture of greater importance than the fatigue of any man.

As the Commander concludes his harangue, a shell bursts on the ground close to him, covering him with sand. He does not pause to shake the sand off, but finishes his sentence: "Of course it is a chance, but they may not notice you go up against this cloudy background, and may be tempted to take up that position by seeing the balloon go down. If they do, well--" and he looks toward his guns and smiles thoughtfully.

The younger man nods, takes one more pull at his flask, feels if both pairs of field-glasses are hanging round his neck--he carries two--straps a telephone receiver and mouthpiece round his head, and climbs into the clothes-basket which is held by the men. The basket is attached to the rigid kite cable by runners. After the gear is tried, another large kite, which is harnessed to his prosaic-looking chariot, is thrown into the air. Making one or two ineffectual dives, it catches the wind and begins to pull. Slowly at first the observer rises, then faster as the great wings above him catch more of the breeze. Now they feel it, and up he sails like a pantomime stormfiend, to the accompanying moan of the wire vibrating in the wind. In a few moments he is a stationary spot far up on the slanting wire.

How insignificant in contrast to the great bulk of the balloon does the whole collection of kites appear--yet--the eye is there.

IV

The commanding officer goes back to his station by the telephone, and waits. Prrrrrt, grumbles the instrument, and this time it is he himself who takes the receiver. He listens attentively, for it is difficult to hear along an aerial line, and there is much repetition before he finally replies "All right!" to his subordinate up above. A word to a staff-officer, who at once waves to some one near the guns. Then ensues much activity. Within three minutes every muzzle has been switched round by hand so as to face the hills on the East, at half a right angle from its former direction. The gun-layers at once start laying at the range obtained by those few shots fired some hours back, and buckets are emptied on the ground, but no effort is made to dig shelters, for they will be unnecessary. The exposure of and loss to be caused by the new position is ignored. When all are at their stations ready to open fire, a whistle sounds.

The suppressed excitement is catching. That the Commander himself is not unaffected is shown from the manner in which he ostentatiously, and with almost too great deliberation, selects a cigar from his case and begins chewing the end of it....

"Prrrrrt," rattles the telephone: the Commander drops the chewed cigar and listens.

"Are you ready?" gurgles down the wire.

"Yes."

"The head of their column is not far off the poplar tree."

A pause.

* * * * * * *

Meanwhile, on the hilltop, the watcher has again sat down. Now there is nothing to watch in the sky, he sets himself to study the enemy's guns, amongst which he seems vaguely to discover some movement. Can they have suspected anything? As he sweeps his glass carelessly across the gray cloud toward its terrestrial object, something--a midge probably--in the upper corner of the object-glass catches his eye. He puts down the glass and rubs the lens with his handkerchief. He looks again. The midge is still there. He looks directly at it--it is a collection of midges. Good God! These are no midges--they are a covey of war kites high up in the sky! Yes, and there is the observer hanging some distance below, who must have seen all!

By this time two or three guns have turned out of the lane and are unlimbering.

He rises and tries to shout--it is too late.

* * * * * * *

"Now they're turning out of the road, through three or four gaps, to come into action--now two guns have left the road--hullo!--are you there?" continues the thin metallic voice down the wire.

"Yes."

"Let them have it."

The Commander, from his lowly position, looks up and nods to a signaller standing up on a mound; the latter drops his flag.

The air is split by the noise of the whole line of guns as they open rapid fire. It is like the report of one piece prolonged into a continuous long note.

Upon the brow of that hill of doom, hiding the sky-line for perhaps 400 yards to the right of the now obscured poplar, appears a crown of magenta-coloured smoke, out of which a succession of light flashes sparkle.

* * * * * * *

By those up on that hill is heard a faint roar in the distance, followed by a whistling sound, and the air above--all round--is full of crackling reports, shouts, oaths, and groans. Bullets tear the earth on all sides, and the steel gun-shields ring out like gongs under their blows. Everything except the dreadful sounds becomes blurred in the puffs of acrid, tinted smoke which the wind drives across the hilltop.

* * * * * * *

In a minute, automatically, the fire ceases--a long period for quick-firing guns which pour out fifteen shells a minute, and much ammunition, but this is an opportunity given by the gods.

The Commander puts the telephone to his lips:

"Hullo!--is that enough?"

"Wait a minute. My God! It is."

V

Not one return shot has been fired.