It was almost red-hot. The flames of the enemy's
batteries could be seen stabbing through a fringe of trees, perhaps
two kilometres away, by Pervyse. Their shells were making puff-balls
of smoke over neighbouring farms, and for miles round I could see
the clouds stretching out into long, thin wisps. The air throbbed with
horrible concussions, the dull full boom of big guns, the sharp
staccato of the smaller shell, and the high singing note of it as it came
soaring overhead. Gradually one began to realize the boredom of
battle, to acquire some of that fantastic indifference to the chance of
death which enables the soldiers to stir their soup without an upward
glance at a skyful of jagged steel. Only now and then the old question
came to one, "This--or the next?"
It was only the adventure of searching out the wounded that broke
the monotony for the Belgian ambulance men. At first they were not
hard to find--they were crowded upon the straw in cottage parlours,
cleared of all but the cheap vases on the mantelshelf and family
photographs tacked upon walls that had not been built for the bloody
mess of tragedy which they now enclosed. On their bodies they bore
the signs of the tremendous accuracy of the enemy's artillery, and by
their number, increasing during the day, one could guess at the tragic
endurance of the Belgian infantry in the ring of iron which was closing
upon them; drawing just a little nearer by half a village or half a road
as the hours passed.
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