It was easy running in the grass, the long, level fields, a fence now and then, a stone wall; but then came a slope and ploughed ground, where one stumbled and fell with his face in the brown dirt, and fancied himself hit in the pit of the stomach--only, why not dead?--saw the lines gone on; got up, and ran after to the edge of a field of standing corn. A fenced road was beyond, a white building with a central, squat chimney, overhung by heavy woods full of smoke. The lower part of the smoke bellied forward, jumped, and trembled at the edge. There seemed to be singularly few in the running line now. One seemed, in fact, to be running back unaccountably, down the slope and the ploughed ground, into another triple line, a surf of guns, caps, hot faces, and innumerable legs. One seemed to be caught up and rushed back, ploughed ground and slope, and lined up at the top, there loading and firing across the corn. Comparatively it was restful, mechanical. To find one's cartridge-belt empty at last was a disappointment. It seemed to imply the need of doing something else, something new and untried. The smoke in the woods ahead was thinner. "I guess Johnnie's belt's empty, too." "I guess we're going in to see. Here we go!" They ran into the corn. One did not feel military--rather, happy-go-lucky. The enemy behind the fence and in the road all ran away to the woods, where there seemed nothing much going on. It looked like a gaping mouth, the tree-trunks like black teeth, and the smoke from the blacker throat drifted between the teeth. It seemed to have sucked in its hot breath and red tongue--to be waiting. The fence was nearly reached when it let go a thousand red tongues, a voice that crashed, a breath that was hot and smoky, that jumped and trembled. One dropped behind the fence and felt for cartridges. "Hi, Jimmie! Going to get out o' this." "Close up, men. Steady there." "That's the colonel." "Yep." "Draw them off, now. Steady. Close up." "Belts, boys--look for belts." They went back slowly, stripping the cartridge-belts from men fallen between the corn-hills, and firing at the smoke; into the grass, at length, and at length to a halt in cover of broken fence and line of weeds, hard by the woods they had left at dawn. The enemy spread over the cornfield. One seemed to resent it on account of owning that cornfield with a more than ancestral heritage. There were fresh columns coming up on the right. The broken brigades in the grass watched them pass. Their line mounted and stood still on the ridge, outlined against the woods and volleying evenly. Gaps opened and closed. Some one said, "They're old troops." They went into the corn with a rush. Whatever happened, it sounded like an explosion of a half-hour's length, and after it the cornfield and ploughed land were empty, except for the smoke, and the wounded and dead, some hidden in the corn, some seen against the brown fallow.