"Five hours of this, Excellenz," he said with a smile, "and then, the first step to Verdun!"
The Oberst expatiated on the wonderful German system for supplying all these batteries indefinitely at this intensity of fire. "Who can resist us?" was the implied corollary to his dissertation. The neutral was duly impressed, his dark clever eyes serious.
The bombardment continued, became monotonous. The fog thinned somewhat but permitted no clear vision. The batteries were firing by the map, according to a prearranged programme. The Oberst suggested to his distinguished guest that further stay was useless.
"I would like to see your guns at work, Herr Oberst," said the neutral, and the colonel saw himself forced to put aside his hopes of returning to Corps Headquarters for _Mittagessen_. He speculated on the Divisional Messes in their vicinity as he replied:
They scrambled down the rough path of the knoll, through a thin growth of birch, passed into the denser mist below.
They found themselves suddenly among long ranks of resting infantry squatting and lying in close proximity to their piled arms. The feld-grau uniforms merged, were lost in the fog, but there was an indefinable suggestion of the presence of many thousands. The Oberst and his guest might walk where they would, the shadowy grey forms still loomed up out of the mist. All were cheerful and confident. The officers in little groups smiling as they conversed, bent over a map. The men grinning. They were waiting for the guns to level the path for their "promenade."
At last the ranks of infantry ceased. They came upon a field battery that was firing furiously. The guns were in the open, their upturned caissons--lid upright to form a shield, exposing the pigeon-holed bases of the cartridges--close against the left wheel. Grouped behind each were the busy gunners, in rapid movement of arms and torso, crouching, labouring with swift concentrated intensity as they passed the long, gleaming projectile from hand to hand, thrust it into the breech, closed and fired. Behind them was a heap of brass cartridge-cases, the flat compartmented baskets that had held three rounds. The watching officers, helmeted, in long closely-buttoned coats, stood behind their sections. The battery hurled out its stream of death in absolute immunity. No enemy shell came to seek it. The fog veiled its target.