Got to be careful you don't lift your neb in the air as
long as they're buzzing about, nor put your hand out to see if it's
raining. Now, our 75 mm.--"
"There aren't only the 77's," Mesnil Andre broke in, "there's
all damned sorts. Spell those out for me--" Those are shrill and
cutting whistles, trembling or rattling; and clouds of all shapes
gather on the slopes yonder whose vastness shows through them,
slopes where our men are in the depths of the dug-outs. Gigantic
plumes of faint fire mingle with huge tassels of steam, tufts that
throw out straight filaments, smoky feathers that expand as they
fall--quite white or greenish-gray, black or copper with gleams of
gold, or as if blotched with ink.
The two last explosions are quite near. Above the battered ground
they take shape like vast balls of black and tawny dust; and as they
deploy and leisurely depart at the wind's will, having finished
their task, they have the outline of fabled dragons.
Our line of faces on the level of the ground turns that way, and we
follow them with our eyes from the bottom of the trench in the
middle of this country peopled by blazing and ferocious apparitions,
these fields that the sky has crushed.
"Those, they're the 150 mm. howitzers."--"They're the 210's,
calf-head."--"There go the regular guns, too; the hogs! Look at that
one!" It was a shell that burst on the ground and threw up earth and
debris in a fan-shaped cloud of darkness.
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