Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/164

 quaking of the ground and a sudden, tremendous new impact of sound sat her up in the darkness, awake. She gazed at her watch; it was half-past four. German guns now were sending the monstrous missiles whose detonation shook the land; it was the English guns which attempted the reply. Ruth went to her window and gazed out in the dark toward the lines until the gray of dawn discovered a thin gray mist over the ground—a mist of the sort making for surprises of attacking forces upon the forces defending; and that frightful fire of the German guns meant that, this morning at last, the Germans were attacking.

Ruth dressed as Mrs. Mayhew and everyone else in the house was dressing. The thunder of the guns, the never-ceasing concussion of the bursting shells rolled louder and nearer.

"That must be the start of their offensive," Mrs. Mayhew said. "Let them try; they'll never get through!"

"No," Ruth said; and she believed it. She thought of the German attacks upon Ypres in the early years of the war; of their failure at Verdun last year and the slow progress of the allies when they had been on the offensive—the French in Champagne and the English on the Somme. The others also believed it.

"What will you be about today, dear?" Mrs. Mayhew asked Ruth.

"Oh!"—Ruth needed the moment of the exclamation to recollect. "I'm going to Aubigny to see that our last lot of portable houses got there all right and that the people know how to put them up."

"Then come with me; I'm going to Ham," Mrs. May-