Halfway in among the batteries I paused for guidance. There were certain lines between our batteries and the Russian batteries which were called “lines of fire,” and these lines were good places to avoid. Soon two soldiers, each with a rice bag on his back, came along, and I picked up their trail. There was a narrow valley which led to the Ninth Division, whose firing line was to be the center of the attack and for which I was bound. Along the center of this valley seemed to me the right way, but the soldiers headed straight across it, business-like, stolid, as if they knew where to go, and I followed. We were fair in the midst of it then. In ravines on both sides the Osacca mortars were hid. From behind and directly over our heads a naval battery was firing, and in front of us there were four or five batteries of field artillery, opening the engagement. There was never a moment without two or three shells in the air directly over our heads. So long as they were friendly shells--imagine a shell being friendly!--no one seemed to mind. (That “seemed” is a good word to describe my state.) But directly they came viciously from across the valley--look out! Presently one did come that way. I knew it was coming. How? I felt it. So the ground in front found my stomach and my nose sniffed the gravel. It could not have passed very far above our heads--this shell--for when it exploded behind the dust showered over us, and I thanked myself for lying down, else a fragment might have rapped me so I would have cared nothing for dust or dirt of stale encampments. Of course, the soldiers must have lain down, too--they surely must have known the danger. I looked up to laugh with them, but they were trudging on stolidly, as if they were carrying a pound of meat home from the butcher’s. When the dust came they blinked--that was all. I was so ashamed I hardly dared show myself; yet I needed my legs to get on out of the line of fire, and there are times one forgets his pride. I ran; but no need to be ashamed; they had not seen me fall, had neither quickened nor lessened pace, had turned not so much as an eyelash to left or right. They had orders to take that rice to the battery, and to the battery they were going. So I paused--amazement surviving fear--and looked at them, cogs of the machine, secret of an army’s strength, of its indomitable bravery. As well expect the shafts of an engine to cry quits when the trucks spring a hot box!