They must maintain their steady march directly toward the mouths of those guns. John comprehended in those awful moments that the task of the French was terrible, almost superhuman. If their nation was to live they must hurl back a victorious foe, practically numberless, armed and equipped with everything that a great race in a half-century of supreme thought and effort could prepare for war. It was spirit and patriotism against the monstrous machine of fire and steel, and he trembled lest the machine could overcome anything in the world.
He was about to shout again to de Rougemont, but his words were lost in the rending crash of the French artillery. Their batteries were posted on both sides of him, and they, too, had found the range. All along the front hundreds of guns were opening and John hastily thrust portions that he tore from his handkerchief into his ear, lest he be deafened forever.
The sight, at first magnificent, now became appalling. The shells came in showers and the French ranks were torn and mangled. Companies existed and then they were not. The explosions were like the crash of thunderbolts, but through it all the French continued to advance. Those whose knees grew weak beneath them were upborne and carried forward by the press of their comrades. The French gunners, too, were making prodigious efforts but with cannon of such long range neither side could see what its batteries were accomplishing. John was sure, though, that the great French artillery must be giving as good as it received.
He was conscious that General Vaugirard was still going forward along the long white road, sweeping his glasses from left to right and from right to left in a continuous semi-circle, apparently undisturbed, apparently now without human emotion. He was no figure of romance, but he was a man, cool and powerful, ready to die with all his men, if death for them was needed.
Still the invisible hand swept them on, the hand that a million men in action could not see, but which every one of the million, in his own way, felt. The crash of the guns on both sides had become fused together into one roar, so steady and continued so long that the sound seemed almost normal. Voices could now be heard under it and John spoke to de Rougemont.