The firing line upon the intervening ridge lies quiet in its concealment. Its officers have no wish to provoke a _rafale_ from a battery protected by tall stone sangars. Intently they watch the sheets of dust that spurt up high over the line of boulders like the beat of a rough sea against a breakwater. They mark where the long thin tongues of flame shoot out ceaselessly in reply, spitting at a distant target far behind them. They communicate these observations to the battalion commander who is smoking a cigarette in an attitude of ease a little way down the slope. A man close to him commences a series of quick, jerky gesticulations with a pair of flags held stiffly at arm's length. No flags wave in reply, but, far back, the brigadier at the telephone speaks. A great shell rushes overhead with the roar of an express train. A moment later the officers upon the ridge see a sudden eruption of flame and rocks in the centre of the line of boulders. They send another message down to the signaller. Another shell hurtles through the air, another explosion shoots upward, this time nearer to the spitting guns. Where the fumes drift off, great holes, in which there is a scurry of tiny figures, are visible in the shelter trench. Wide grins open on the faces of the Serbian firing-line as they draw their rifles close to them and finger the triggers. They understand fully the value of artillery support. Again and again the volcanic eruptions spout into the air with an appalling detonation that breaks heavily into the rolling echoes which fill the valley. Two of them leap up suddenly from the very midst of the dust-cloud where the battery is at work. There is a fountain of flying rocks dark in the centre of the flame, and in the colossal roar of the explosion a brief, acute note of human agony comes like a high-pitched discord mingled with a thunderous bass. A moment later the line of guns is revealed, naked to attack. A few men are seen darting with short movements about them. Three out of the six eject a tongue of flame at short intervals. While they fire, a pale gleam flickers along the Serbian ridge as the bayoneted rifles are thrust forward, and with a long dry crackle a sheet of bullets leaps out at the wrecked battery. The sun rises over a shoulder of the mountains and a band of golden light spreads downwards, illuminates the flying clouds of dust in which figures can just be seen frantically endeavouring to turn the guns in the new direction. They are picked off one by one with deadly aim. Above the trench the shrapnel bursts incessantly, a new shower starting ere its predecessor has reached earth.