The business of the young officer was not with these cannon, but with the infantry, who, crouching before the guns, hugging the ground, were to bide their time in safety for two hours. Therefore, sitting on his horse, he still fitted words to his thoughts. The conflict before him is not a fight for men, it is a fight for mighty engines of war; it is not a human battle, it is a storm, far above earthly passion. "Infuriate demons" are these guns, their mouths are ablaze with smoky tongues of livid fire, their breath is murky, sulphur-laden; they are surrounded by grimy, shouting, frenzied creatures who are not their masters but their ministers. Around them rolls the smoke of Hades. To their sound all other cannonading of the young officer's experience was as a holiday salute. Solid shot shattered iron of gun and living trunk of tree. Shot struck also its intended target: men fell, torn, mangled; horses started, stiffened, crashed to the ground, or rushed, maddened, away.
Still there was nothing for the young officer to do but to watch. Near him a man crouched by a stone, like a toad, or like pagan worshiper before his idol. The young officer looked at him curiously.
"Go to your regiment and be a man!" he ordered.
But the man did not stir, the shot which splintered the protecting stone left him still kneeling, still unhurt. To the young officer he was one of the unaccountable phenomena of battle, he was incomprehensible, monstrous.
He noted also the curious freaks played by round shot, the visible flight of projectiles through the air, their strange hiss "with sound of hot iron, plunged into water." He saw ambulances wrecked as they moved along; he saw frantic horses brought down by shells; he calls them "horse-tamers of the upper air." He saw shells fall into limber-boxes, he heard the terrific roar which followed louder than the roar of guns; he observed the fall of officer, of orderly, of private soldier.
After the first hour of terrific din, he rode with his general down the line. The infantry still lay prone upon the ground, out of range of the missiles. The men were not suffering and they were quiet and cool. They professed not to mind the confusion; they claimed laughingly to like it.