Figures loomed up unexpectedly out of the mist; occasionally a low curse could be heard as a man stumbled into a shell hole. . . .
"Everything all right; everybody clear?" The gas expert peered at Vane in the darkness. "Right! well, let her go."
A series of reports sounded deafeningly loud, as the detonators of the cylinders were fired by electricity; a steady, hissing noise as a great wall of white vapour mingled with the mist and rolled forward towards the Germans. The gas attack had begun. To an airman returning from a bombing raid, who circled for a moment above, it looked like a sheet being slowly spread over the country below; a beautiful--an eerie--picture. To those on the ground who watched it, it seemed as a solid wall of dense fog moving relentlessly forward--like the mist that comes creeping over the Downs till those caught in it can scarce see their hand in front of their face. To the Boche it was death. . . .
Patrols going out the next night found men twisted and blackened with the smell of pineapple still on their swollen lips; in the hospitals behind, men writhed and muttered hoarsely, struggling for breath and struggling in vain. The attack had been successful--and all was as it should be. Undoubtedly the Germans started gas in a country where the prevalent wind was south-west--and it doesn't pay in war to be a fool. . . .
Vane wished that one or two German men of science had been occupying the Boche outpost line instead of. . . . War--modern war!
"It will go clean through their helmets," said the gas expert. "One hour in most cases, and when it gets weaker, twenty-four--or even more. That's the stuff to give 'em."
At last the performance was over, and the trains having delivered the goods returned to their own place.
"Most successful." The gas expert, rubbing his hands together, came up to Vane as he stood on the Lille road. "I think we've got quite a number of the blighters. And not a single casualty!"
"Good," said Vane. "But what a filthy method of fighting."
"The Germans started it," returned the other.
"I know they did," laughed Vane. "That's probably why it's so filthy."
The gas officer looked thoughtful. "I'm not certain that I agree with you, Vane. War is such a filthy business, however you look at it, that one would be a fool not to harness science in every possible way . . ."