All through another day I watched the business of battle--a
strange, mysterious thing in which one fails to find any controlling
brain. Regiments came out of the trenches and wandered back,
caked with clay, haggard for lack of sleep, with a glint of hunger in
their eyes. Guns passed along the roads with ammunition wagons,
whose axles shrieked over the stones. For an hour a Belgian battery
kept plugging shots towards the enemy's lines. The artillerymen were
leisurely at their work, handling their shells with interludes of
conversation. At luncheon time they lay about behind the guns
smoking cigarettes, and I was glad, for each of their shots seemed to
wreck my own brain. At a neighbouring village things were more
lively. The enemy was turning his fire this way. A captive balloon had
signalled the position, and shrapnels were bursting close. One shell
tore up a great hole near the railway line.
Shell after shell fell upon one dung-heap--mistaken perhaps for a
company of men. Shrapnel bullets pattered into the roadway, a piece
of jagged shell fell with a clatter.
My own chauffeur--a young man of very cool nerve and the best
driver I have known--picked it up with a grin, and then dropped it, with
a sharp cry.
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