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“I know a feller in that battery,” said Nolan musingly.”A driver.”

“Damn sight rather be a gunner,” said Martin.

“Why would ye?” said Nolan opposingly.

“Well, I’d take my chances as a gunner b’fore I’d sit ‘way up in th’ air on a raw-boned plug an’ git shot at.”

“Aw — ” began Nolan.

“They’ve had some losses t’-day all right,” interrupted Grierson.

“Horses?” asked Watkins.

“Horses, an’ men too,” said Grierson.

“How d’yeh know?”

“A feller told me there by the ford.”

They kept only a part of their minds bearing on this discussion because they could already hear high in the air the wire-string note of the enemy’s bullets.

III

The road taken by this battalion, as it followed other battalions, is something less than a mile long in its journey across a heavily wooded plain. It is greatly changed now; in fact, it was metamorphosed in two days; but at that time it was a mere track through dense shrubbery from which rose great, dignified arching trees. It was, in fact, a path through a jungle.

The battalion had no sooner left the battery in rear than bullets began to drive overhead. They made several different sounds, but as they were mainly high shots, it was usual for them to make the faint note of a vibrant string touched elusively, half dreamily.

The military balloon, a fat, wavering yellow thing, was leading the advance like some new conception of war-god. Its bloated mass shone above the trees, and served incidentally to indicate to the men at the rear that comrades were in advance. The track itself exhibited, for all its visible length, a closely knit procession of soldiers in blue, with breasts crossed by white shelter-tents. The first ominous order of battle came down the line.”Use the cut-off. Don’t use the magazine until you’re ordered.”

Non-commissioned officers repeated the command gruffly. A sound of clicking locks rattled along the column. All men knew that the time had come.

The front had burst out with a roar like a brush fire. The balloon was dying, dying a gigantic and public death before the eyes of two armies. It quivered, sank, faded into the trees amid the flurry of a battle that was suddenly and tremendously like a storm.

The American battery thundered behind the men with a shock that seemed likely to tear the backs of their heads off. The Spanish shrapnel fled on a line to their left, swirling and swishing in supernatural velocity. The noise of the rifle bullets broke in their faces like the noise of so many lamp chimneys, or sped overhead in swift, cruel spitting. And at the front, the battle-sound, as if it were simply music, was beginning to swell and swell until the volleys rolled like a surf.

The officers shouted hoarsely.

“Come on, men!Hurry up, boys!Come on, now!Hurry up!”The soldiers, running heavily in their accouterments, dashed forward. A baggage guard was swiftly detailed; the men tore their rolls from their shoulders as if the things were afire. The battalion, stripped for action, again dashed forward.

“Come on, men!Come on!”

To them the battle was as yet merely a road through the woods crowded with troops who lowered their heads anxiously as the bullets fled high. But a moment later the column wheeled abruptly to the left and entered a field of tall green grass. The line scattered to a skirmish formation. In front was a series of knolls, treed sparsely like orchards, and although no enemy was visible, these knolls were all popping and spitting with rifle-fire. In some places there were to be seen long gray lines of dirt intrenchments. The American shells were kicking up reddish clouds of dust from the brow of one of the knolls where stood a pagoda-like house. It was not much like a battle with men; it was a battle with a bit of charming scenery, enigmatically potent for death.

Nolan knew that Martin had suddenly fallen.”What — ” he began.

“They’ve hit me,” said Martin.