Page:The Marne (Wharton 1918).djvu/117

Rh crashing through the quiet dawn. The birds flew up with frightened cries from the trees along the roadside; rooks cawed their warning from clump to clump, and gathered in the sky in dark triangles flying before the danger.

The east began to redden through the dust-haze of the cloudless air. As they advanced the road became more and more crowded, and the ambulance was caught in the usual dense traffic of the front: artillery, field-kitchens, motor-trucks, horse-wagons, hay-carts packed with refugees, and popping motor-cycles zigzagging through the tangle of vehicles. The movement seemed more feverish and uncertain than usual, and now and then the road was jammed, and curses, shouts and the crack of heavy whips sounded against the incessant cannonade that hung its iron curtain above the hills to the north-east. The faces of soldiers