Something within me seemed to quake at these engines of
destruction, these masses of explosive power sent for the killing of
men, invisible there on the ridge, but cowering in fear or lying in their
blood.
How queer are the battlefields of life and the minds of men! Down
below me, in a field, men were playing a game of football while all this
business of death was going on. Above and between the guns I
heard their shouts and cheers, and the shrill whistle for "half-time,"
though there was no half-time in the other game so close to them.
Nature, too, was playing, indifferent to this bloody business. All the
time, while the batteries were at work, birds were singing the spring
song in ecstatic lyrics of joyfulness, and they went on far flights
across a pale blue lake which was surrounded by black mountains of
cloud.
Another bird came out, but with a man above its wings. It was an
English aeroplane on a journey of reconnaissance above the
enemy's lines. I heard the loud hum of its engine, and watched how
its white wings were made diaphanous by the glint of sun until it
passed away into the cloud wrack.
It was invisible to us now, but not to the enemy. They had sighted it,
and we saw their shrapnel searching the sky for it.
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