Away to his left the other two batteries of the brigade were firing likewise. The rapid, violent reports of the line of guns overlapped, merged into one long-drawn-out explosion that intensified spasmodically as two or more fired at the same instant. The clamour of the general battle was obscured, forgotten. The subaltern glanced at the bare hill in front of him, over which the shells from the brigade were streaming at the rate of one hundred and eight a minute. On what were they falling, two and a half miles away? A straggling thought in him found leisure for the question while yet the main forces of his mind were concentrated on the busy detachments and the guns they served. He had scarce noted it when an order was passed down the battery. "Stand fast." Immediately there was silence. Only a faint haze spread and thinned between the gun-muzzles and the ridge to show that they had been at work. What of the distant, invisible target? The captain, who had been standing by the battery commander, passed on his way to the wagons. The subaltern stopped him. "What was it?" he asked. "Battery coming into action--just caught 'em--wiped out," answered the captain laconically and hurried on. The subaltern stared--horror-stricken involuntarily. Wiped out! He tried to imagine the wreckage of that battery overwhelmed in a few instants by a rain of shells coming from they knew not whence. He failed. In that meadow, strangely quiet now despite a terrific din that welled up from over the ridge, he could not picture it. The hill in front was a wall across his vision. The brigade waited, but no further orders came. For the moment their work was done. The guns stretched across the field, their muzzles elevated, like a row of silent, expectant dogs. The lieutenant commanding the adjacent section came up and asked the subaltern for a cigarette. The subaltern gave it, repressing a smile. That lieutenant never had any cigarettes. As he relaxed from the strain of those few furious minutes the subaltern felt suddenly hungry. He remembered that he had filled a pocket with biscuits and munched at one as he gazed idly along the battery. Fitfully his mind returned to the brief activity of his guns and he contemplated the recollection with comfort. Never had he lost mastery over himself. He was a man tried and proved. With a vague dull curiosity he watched the group by the wood on the hill above him. Members of it were moving to and fro. He noticed one figure standing with both hands up to his face, his elbows sticking out. He was examining something through his glasses. The subaltern wondered whether it was the colonel and the thought came to him that on a word from that man he and his fellows might be hurried to death as if to execution. Every minute, orderlies rode at speed up to the group.