It even happened the other day in the wood
that a whole section mistook for the hoarse howl of a shell the
first notes of a neighboring mule as he began his whinnying bray.
"I say, there's a good show of sausages in the air this morning,"
says Lamuse. Lifting our eyes, we count them.
"There are eight sausages on our side and eight on the Boches',"
says Cocon, who has already counted them.
There are, in fact, at regular intervals along the horizon, opposite
the distance-dwindled group of captive enemy balloons, the eight
long hovering eyes of the army, buoyant and sensitive, and joined to
the various headquarters by living threads.
"They see us as we see them. how the devil can one escape from that
row of God Almighties up there?"
There's our reply!
Suddenly, behind our backs, there bursts the sharp and deafening
stridor of the 75's. Their increasing crackling thunder arouses and
elates us. We shout with our guns, and look at each other without
hearing our shouts--except for the curiously piercing voice that
comes from Barque's great mouth--amid the rolling of that fantastic
drum whose every note is the report of a cannon.
Then we turn our eyes ahead and outstretch our necks, and on the top
of the hill we see the still higher silhouette of a row of black
infernal trees whose terrible roots are striking down into the
invisible slope where the enemy cowers.
While the "75" battery continues its barking a hundred yards behind
us--the sharp anvil-blows of a huge hammer, followed by a dizzy
scream of force and fury--a gigantic gurgling dominates the devilish
oratorio; that, also, is coming from our side.
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