A strange silence sat upon the marching column, or a silence which would have been strange, with less taciturn men, and they went as though they were going to mill with grain to be ground. As they were reinforcing outposts, no advance guard felt its way at the front. The colonel, major of the second battalion, and part of the staff, all mounted on Philippine ponies, rode a few paces ahead of the column. The way now led through scattered houses and straggling gardens, where ragged palm-fronds waved to the sea-breeze. From some of the windows came wails of fright as immured house-holders heard the popping of bullets against their frail habitations.
Suddenly, above the din of rifle-fire, rose a deep boom, followed by a rumble like the rail-song of a distant express. Two seconds later came a loud swish, and two or three of the frail nipa shacks to the left and rear collapsed as though a ten-pin ball had struck houses of cards. The column was under artillery fire, and should by all military theories deploy into open formation, instead of offering a compact target. But ahead lay an _estero_, or slough, which must be crossed on a bridge. Beyond that were open fields with rice-dykes and cane--a place of comparative security not yet attained.
At the order "double-quick" ringing from the bugles, the column leaped eagerly forward to a clattering trot, but before they reached the bridge two more of the loud-throated roars gave warning, and two more of the solid shot plowed past, to demolish other houses perilously near by. Henry Falkins looked back to see how his men were standing this initial test, and smiled, well satisfied.
Then the bridge was reached and crossed, and the command was spreading fan-like into open order. Now the bullets were not only giving voice overhead, but kicking up the dirt near at hand.
Out there in the darkness, now only a little way distant, lay the sixty or seventy men of the regimental outpost, who had been sustaining the onslaught from the trenches for an hour or more. One could mark their positions from the spitting tongues of their rifles, and as the two battalions deployed, creeping up, in open order, to reinforce and relieve them, they fell back nonchalantly, wiping the sweat out of their eyes, powder-grimed, and making brief comments to their fellows; comments perhaps mingled with such sense of patronage as men coming out of their baptism of fire may have for those just going in. Then, with business-like quiet, the battalions worked forward and lay down in the trenches, which had merely been a guard-line for weeks.