But a tremendous noise beyond the stage would have spoilt the play.
French batteries were hard at work and their shells came rushing like
fierce birds above the trees. The sharp "tang" of the French
"Soixante-quinze" cracked out between the duller thuds of the "Cent-
vingt" and other heavy guns, and there were only brief moments of
silence between those violent explosions and the long-drawn sighs of
wind as the shells passed overhead and then burst with that final
crash which scatters death.
In one of the silences, when the wood was very still and murmurous
with humming insects, I heard a voice call. It was not a challenge of
"Qui va la?" or "Garde a vous," but the voice of spring. It called
"Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" and mocked at war.
A young officer with me was more interested in the voices of the
guns. He knew them all, even when they spoke from the enemy's
batteries, and as we walked he said alternately, "Depart.. Arrive...
Depart... Arrive..." as one of the French shells left and one of the
German shells arrived.
The enemy's shells came shattering across the French lines very
frequently, and sometimes as I made my way through the trees
towards the outer bastions I heard the splintering of wood not far
away.
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