Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/175

Rh self. The red-headed brigade officer, experienced in such estimates, walked a little faster and hesitated before answering my question.

"I daresay they've seen a couple of our men coming up with a water cart."

You felt a swift sympathy for those men, a desire to know if the soldiers for whom they had started would have to wait for water, but sharp fire begets selfishness, and just then shells began to drop in the field to our right. The sound of a number of screams did not diminish. They ended instead in fat, puffy explosions, and in the cloud- less sky, clouds, snow white and beautiful, were born, "Shrapnel!” the officer muttered. “What are they after?"

From the rear came Williams' voice.

"What do the Huns think they're strafing out here?"

And above the roar another anxious query:

"Can they see us from their sausage?"

Before any one could answer four roars at intervals of less than a second heralded four formidable detonations, and not far in the field four sable strains belched apparently from the grass and were drawn by the wind into ugly and impenetrable curtains. The fancy of an earthquake landscape was strengthened, for about these sudden