THE INVISIBLE HAND
It was a brilliant morning sun, deepening the green of the pleasant
land, lighting up villages and glinting off church steeples. In a field
a little distance to their right John saw two peasants at work already,
bent over, their eyes upon the ground, apparently as indifferent to the
troops as the troops were to them.
It was very early, but the sun was rising fast, unfolding a splendid
panorama. The French army with its blues and reds was more spectacular
than the German, and hence afforded a more conspicuous target. John was
sure that if the war went on the French would discard these vivid
uniforms and betake themselves to gray or khaki. He saw clearly that the
day of gorgeous raiment for the soldier had passed.
The great puffing sound of primeval monsters which had blended into one
rather harmonious note ceased, as if by signal, and the innumerable
motors stopped. As far as John could see the army stretched to left and
right over roads, hills and fields, but in the fields behind them the
silent peasants went on with their work--in fields which the Republic
had made their own.
"I think we take breakfast here," said Rougemont. "War is what one of
your famous American generals said it was, but for the present, at
least, we are marching _de luxe_. Here comes one of those glorious
camp-kitchens."
An enormous motor vehicle, equipped with all the paraphernalia of a
kitchen, stopped near them, and men, trim and neatly dressed, served hot
food and steaming coffee. General Vaugirard had alighted also, and John
noticed that his step was much more springy and alert than that of some
officers half his age. His breath came in great gusts, and the small
portion of his face not covered by thick beard was ruddy and glowing
with health. He drank several cups of coffee with startling rapidity,
draining each at a breath, and between times he whistled softly a
pleasing little refrain.
The march must be going well. Undoubtedly General Vaugirard had received
satisfactory messages in the night, while his young American aide, and
other Frenchmen as young, slept.
"Well, my children," he said, rubbing his hands after his last cup of
coffee had gone to its fate, "the day dawns and behold the sun of France
is rising. It's not the sun of Austerlitz, but a modest republican sun
that can grow and grow. Behold we are at the appointed place, set forth
in the message that came to us from the commander-in-chief through
Paris, and then by way of the air! And, look, my children, the bird
from the blue descends once more among us!"
There were flying machines of many kinds in the air, but John promptly
picked out one which seemed to be coming with the flight of an eagle out
of its uppermost heights. He seemed to know its slim, lithe shape, and
the rapidity and decision of its approach. His heart thrilled, as it had
thrilled when he saw the _Arrow_ coming for the first time on that spur
of the Alps near Salzburg.
"It's for me," said General Vaugirard, as he looked upward. "This flying
demon, this man without fear, was told to report directly to me, and he
conies at the appointed hour."
Something of the mystery that belongs to the gulf of the infinite was
reflected in the general's eyes. He, too, felt that man's flight in the
heavens yet had in it a touch of the supernatural. Lannes' plane had
seemed to shoot from white clouds, out of unknown spaces, and the
general ceased to whistle or breathe gustily. His chest rose and fell
more violently than usual, but the breath came softly.
The plane descended rapidly and settled down on the grass very near
them. Lannes saluted and presented a note to General Vaugirard, who
started and then expelled the breath from his lungs in two or three
prodigious puffs.
"Good, my son, good!" he exclaimed, patting Lannes repeatedly on the
shoulder; "and now a cup of coffee for you at once! Hurry with it, some
of you idle children! Can't you see that he needs it!"
John was first with the coffee, which Lannes drank eagerly, although it
was steaming hot. John saw that he needed it very much indeed, as he was
white and shaky. He noticed, too, that there were spots of blood on
Lannes' left sleeve.
"What is it, Philip?" he whispered. "You've been attacked again?"
"Aye, truly. My movements seem to be observed by some mysterious eye. A
shot was fired at me, and again it came from a French plane. That was
all I could see. We were in a bank of mist at the time, and I just
caught a glimpse of the plane itself. The man was a mere shapeless
figure to me. I had no time to fight him, because I was due here with
another message which made vengeance upon him at that time a matter of
little moment."
He flecked the red drops off his sleeve, and added:
"It was but a scratch. My weary look comes from a long and hard flight
and not from the mysterious bullet. I'm to rest here an hour, which will
be sufficient to restore me, and then I'm off again."
"Is there any rule against your telling me what you've seen, Philip?"
De Rougemont and several other officers had approached, drawn by their
curiosity, and interest in Lannes.
"None at all," he replied in a tone all could hear, "but I'm able to
speak in general terms only. I can't give details, because I don't know
'em. The Germans are not many miles ahead. They're in hundreds of
thousands, and I hear that this is only one of a half-dozen armies."
"And our own force?" said de Rougemont eagerly.
Lannes' chest expanded. The dramatic impulse was strong upon him again.
"There is another army on our right, and another on our left," he
replied, "and although I don't know surely, I think there are others
still further on the line. The English are somewhere with us, too."
John felt his face tingle as the blood rose in it. He had left a Paris
apparently lost. Within a day almost a tremendous transformation had
occurred. A mighty but invisible intellect, to which he was yet scarcely
able to attach a name, had been at work. The French armies, the beaten
and the unbeaten, had become bound together like huge links in a chain,
and the same invisible and all but nameless mind was drawing the chain
forward with gigantic force.
"A million Frenchmen must be advancing," he heard Lannes saying, and
then he came out of his vision. General Vaugirard bustled up and gave
orders to de Rougemont, who said presently to John:
"Can you ride a motor cycle?"
"I've had some experience, and I'm willing to make it more."
"Good. In this army, staff officers will no longer have horses shot
under them. We're to take orders on motor cycles. They've been sent
ahead for us, and here's yours waiting for you."
The cycles were leaning against trees, and the members of the staff took
their places beside them. General Vaugirard walked a little distance up
the road, climbed into an automobile and, standing up, looked a long
time through his glasses. Lannes, who had been resting on the grass,
approached the general and John saw him take a note from him. Then
Lannes went away to the _Arrow_ and sailed off into the heavens. Many
other planes were flying over the French army and far off in front John
saw through his own glasses a fleet of them which he knew must be
German.
Then he heard a sound, faint but deep, which came rolling like an echo,
and he recognized it as the distant note of a big gun. He quivered a
little, as he leaned against his motor cycle, but quickly stiffened
again to attention. The faint rolling sound came again from their right
and then many times. John, using his glasses, saw nothing there, and the
giant general, still standing up in the car and also using his glasses,
saw nothing there either.
Yet the same quiver that affected John had gone through this whole army
of two hundred thousand men, one of the huge links in the French chain.
There was none among them who did not know that the far note was the
herald of battle, not a mere battle of armies, but of nations face to
face.
General Vaugirard did not show any excitement. He leaped lightly from
the car, and then began to pace up and down slowly, as if he were
awaiting orders. The men moved restlessly on the meadows, looking like a
vast sea of varied colors, as the sun glimmered on the red and blue of
their uniforms.
But no order came for them to advance. John thought that perhaps they
were saved to be driven as a wedge into the German center and whispered
his belief to de Rougemont, who agreed with him.
"They are opening on the left, too," said the Frenchman. "Can't you hear
the growling of the guns there?"
John listened and soon he separated the note from other sounds. Beyond a
doubt the battle had now begun on both flanks, though at distant points.
He wondered where the English force was, though he had an idea that it
was on the left then. Yet he was already thoroughly at home with the
staff of General Vaugirard.
The growling on either side of them seemed soon to come a little closer,
but John knew nevertheless that it was many miles away.
"Not an enemy in sight, not even a trace of smoke," said de Rougemont to
him. "We seem to be a great army here, merely resting in the fields, and
yet we know that a huge battle is going on."
"And that's about all we do know," said John. "What has impressed me in
this war is the fact that high officers even know so little. When cannon
throw shells ten or twelve miles, eyesight doesn't get much chance."
A wait for a full half-hour followed, a period of intense anxiety for
all in the group, and for the whole army too. John used his glasses
freely, and often he saw the French soldiers moving about in a restless
manner, until they were checked by their officers. But most of them were
lying down, their blue coats and red trousers making a vast and vivid
blur against the green of the grass.
All the while the sound of the cannon grew, but, despite the power of
his glasses, John could not see a sign of war. Only that roaring sound
came to tell him that battle, vast, gigantic, on a scale the world had
never seen before, was joined, and the volume of the cannon fire, beyond
a doubt, was growing. It pulsed heavily, and either he or his fancy
noticed a steady jarring motion. A faint acrid taint crept into the air
and he felt it in his nose and throat. He coughed now and then, and he
observed that men around him coughed also. But, on the whole, the army
was singularly still, the soldiers straining eye or ear to see something
or hear more of the titanic struggle that was raging on either side of
them.
John again searched the horizon eagerly with his glasses, but it showed
only green hills and bits of wood, bare of human activity. The French
aeroplanes still hovered, but not in front of General Vaugirard. They
were off to right and left, where the wings of the nations had closed in
combat. He was ceasing to think of the foes as armies, but as nations in
battle line. Here stood not a French army, but France, and there stood
not a German army, but Germany.
As he looked toward the left he picked out a narrow road, running
between hedges, and showing but a strip of white even through the
glasses. He saw something coming along this road. It was far away when
he first noticed it, but it was coming with great speed, and he was soon
able to tell that it was a man on a motor cycle. His pulse leaped
again. He felt instinctively that the rider was for them and that he
bore something of great import. The figure, man and cycle, molded into
one, sped along the narrow road which led to the base of the hill on
which General Vaugirard and his staff stood.
The huge general saw the approaching figure too, and he began to whistle
melodiously like the note of a piccolo, with the vast thunder of the
guns accompanying him as an orchestra. John knew that the cyclist was a
messenger, and that he was eagerly expected. An order of some kind was
at hand! All the members of the staff had the same conviction.
The cyclist stopped at the bottom of the hill, leaped from the machine
and ran to General Vaugirard, to whom he handed a note. The general read
it, expelled his breath in a mighty gust, and turning to his staff,
said:
"My children, our time has come. The whole central army of which we are
a part will advance. It will perhaps be known before night whether
France is to remain a great nation or become the vassal of Germany. My
children, if France ever had need for you to fight with all your hearts
and souls, that need is here today."
His manner was simple and majestic, and his words touched the mind and
feeling of every one who heard them. John was moved as much as if he had
been a Frenchman too. He felt a profound sympathy for this devoted
France, which had suffered so much, to which his own country still owed
that great debt, and which had a right to her own soil, fertilized with
so many centuries of labor.
General Vaugirard, resting a pad on his knee, wrote rapid notes which he
gave to the members of his staff in turn to be delivered. John's was to
a Parisian regiment lying in a field, and expanding body and mind into
instant action, he leaped upon the cycle and sped away. It was often
hard for him now to separate fact from fancy. His imagination, vivid at
all times, painted new pictures while such a tremendous drama passed
before him.
Yet he knew afterward that the sound of the battle did increase in
volume as he flew over the short distance to the regiment. Both east and
west were shaking with the tremendous concussion. One crash he heard
distinctly above the others and he believed it was that of a forty-two
centimeter.
He reached the field, his cycle spun between the eager soldiers, and as
he leaped off in the presence of the colonel he fairly thrust the note
into his hand, exclaiming at the same time in his zeal, "It's an order
to advance! The whole Army of the Center is about to attack."
He called it the Army of the Center at a guess, but names did not matter
now. The colonel glanced at the note, waved his sword above his head and
cried in a loud voice:
"My lads, up and forward!"
The regiment arose with a roar of cheering and began to advance across
the fields. John caught a glimpse of a petty officer, short and small,
but as compact and fierce as a panther, driving on men who needed no
driving. "Geronimo is going to make good," he said to himself. "He'll do
or die today."
As he raced back for new orders, if need be, he knew now that fact not
fancy told him the battle was growing. The earth shook not only on right
and left but in front also. A hasty look through the glasses showed
little tongues of fire licking up on the horizon before them and he knew
that they came from the monster cannon of the Germans who were surely
advancing, while the French were advancing also to meet them.
General Vaugirard sprang into his automobile, taking only two of his
senior officers with him, while the rest followed on their motor cycles.
As far as John could see on either side the vast rows of French swept
across hills and fields. There was little shouting now and no sound of
bands, but presently a shout arose behind them: "Way for the artillery!"
Then he heard cries, the rumble of wheels and the rapid beat of hoofs.
With an instinctive shudder, lest he be ground to pieces, he pulled from
the road, and saw the motor of General Vaugirard turn out also. Then the
great French batteries thundered past to seek positions soon in the
fields behind low hills. He saw them a little later unlimbering and
making ready.
The French advance changed from a walk to a trot. John saw the Parisian
regiment, not far away, but at the very front and he knew that among all
those ardent souls there was none more ardent than that of the little
Apache, Bougainville. Meanwhile, Vaugirard in his motor kept to the
road and the staff on their motor cycles followed closely.
On both flanks the thunder of massed cannon was deepening, and now John,
who used his glasses occasionally, was able to see wisps and tendrils of
smoke on the eastern and northern horizons. The tremor in the air was
strong and continuous. It played incessantly upon the drums of his ears,
and he found that he could not hear the words of the other aides so well
as before. But there was no succession of crashes. The sound was more
like the roaring of a distant storm.
They advanced another mile, two hundred thousand men, afire with zeal, a
whole vast army moved forward as the other French armies were by the
hidden hand which they could not see, of which they knew nothing, but
the touch of which they could feel.
John heard a whizzing sound, he caught a glimpse of a dark object,
rushing forward at frightful velocity, and then he and his wheel reeled
beneath the force of a tremendous explosion. The shell coming from an
invisible point, miles away, had burst some distance on his right,
scattering death and wounds over a wide radius. But Vaugirard's brigades
did not stop for one instant. They cheered loudly, closed up the gap in
their line, and went on steadily as before. Some one began to sing the
Marseillaise, and in an instant the song, like fire in dry grass, spread
along a vast front. John had often wished that he could have heard the
armies of the French Revolution singing their tremendous battle hymn as
they marched to victory, and now he heard it on a scale far more
gigantic than in the days of the First French Republic.
The vast chorus rolled for miles and for all he knew other armies, far
to right and left, might be singing it, too. The immense volume of the
song drowned out everything, even that tremor in the air, caused by the
big guns. John's heart beat so hard that it caused actual physical pain
in his side, and presently, although he was unconscious of it, he was
thundering out the verses with the others.
He was riding by the side of de Rougemont, and he stopped singing long
enough to shout, at the top of his voice:
"No enemy in sight yet?"
"No," de Rougemont shouted back, "but he doesn't need to be. The German
guns have our range."
From a line on the distant horizon, from positions behind hills, the
German shells were falling fast, cutting down men by hundreds, tearing
great holes in the earth, and filling the air with an awful shrieking
and hissing. It was all the more terrible because the deadly missiles
seemed to come from nowhere. It was like a mortal hail rained out of
heaven. John had not yet seen a German, nothing but those tongues of
fire licking up on the horizon, and some little whitish clouds of smoke,
lifting themselves slowly above the trees, yet the thunder was no longer
a rumble. It had a deep and angry note, whose burden was death.
They must maintain their steady march directly toward the mouths of
those guns. John comprehended in those awful moments that the task of
the French was terrible, almost superhuman. If their nation was to live
they must hurl back a victorious foe, practically numberless, armed and
equipped with everything that a great race in a half-century of supreme
thought and effort could prepare for war. It was spirit and patriotism
against the monstrous machine of fire and steel, and he trembled lest
the machine could overcome anything in the world.
He was about to shout again to de Rougemont, but his words were lost in
the rending crash of the French artillery. Their batteries were posted
on both sides of him, and they, too, had found the range. All along the
front hundreds of guns were opening and John hastily thrust portions
that he tore from his handkerchief into his ear, lest he be deafened
forever.
The sight, at first magnificent, now became appalling. The shells came
in showers and the French ranks were torn and mangled. Companies existed
and then they were not. The explosions were like the crash of
thunderbolts, but through it all the French continued to advance. Those
whose knees grew weak beneath them were upborne and carried forward by
the press of their comrades. The French gunners, too, were making
prodigious efforts but with cannon of such long range neither side could
see what its batteries were accomplishing. John was sure, though, that
the great French artillery must be giving as good as it received.
He was conscious that General Vaugirard was still going forward along
the long white road, sweeping his glasses from left to right and from
right to left in a continuous semi-circle, apparently undisturbed,
apparently now without human emotion. He was no figure of romance, but
he was a man, cool and powerful, ready to die with all his men, if death
for them was needed.
Still the invisible hand swept them on, the hand that a million men in
action could not see, but which every one of the million, in his own
way, felt. The crash of the guns on both sides had become fused together
into one roar, so steady and continued so long that the sound seemed
almost normal. Voices could now be heard under it and John spoke to de
Rougemont.
"Can you make anything of it?" he asked. "Do we win or do we lose?"
"It's too early yet to tell anything. The cannon only are speaking, but
you'll note that our army is advancing."
"Yes, I see it. Before I've only beheld it in retreat before
overwhelming numbers. This is different."
General Vaugirard beckoned to his aides, and again sent them out with
messages. John's note was to the commander of a battery of field guns
telling him to move further forward. He started at once through the
fields on his motor cycle, but he could not go fast now. The ground had
been cut deep by artillery and cavalry and torn by shells and he had to
pick his way, while the shower of steel, sent by men who were firing by
mathematics, swept over and about him.
Shivers seized him more than once, as shrapnel and pieces of shell flew
by. Now and then he covered his eyes with one hand to shut out the
horror of dead and torn men lying on either side of his path, but in
spite of the shells, in spite of the deadly nausea that assailed him at
times, he went on. The rush of air from a shell threw him once from his
motor cycle, but as he fell on soft clodded earth he was not hurt, and,
springing quickly back on his wheel, he reached the battery.
The order was welcome to the commander of the guns, who was anxious to
go closer, and, limbering up, he advanced as rapidly as weapons of such
great weight could be dragged across the fields. John followed, that he
might report the result. They were now facing toward the east and the
whole horizon there was a blaze of fire. The shells were coming thicker
and thicker, and the air was filled with the screaming of the shrapnel.
The commander of the battery, a short, powerful Frenchman, was as cool
as ice, and John drew coolness from him. One can get used to almost
anything, and his nervous tremors were passing. Despite the terrible
fire of the German artillery the French army was still advancing. Many
thousands had fallen already before the shells and shrapnel of the
invisible foe, but there had been no check.
The cannon crossed a brook, and, unlimbering, again opened a tremendous
fire. To one side and on a hill here, a man whom the commander watched
closely was signaling. John knew that he was directing the aim of the
battery and the French, like the Germans, were killing by mathematics.
He rode his cycle to the crest of a little elevation behind the battery
and with his newfound coolness began to use his glasses again. Despite
the thin, whitish smoke, he saw men on the horizon, mere manikins moving
back and forth, apparently without meaning, but men nevertheless. He
caught, too, the outline of giant tubes, the huge guns that were sending
the ceaseless rain of death upon the French.
He also saw signs of hurry and confusion among those manikins, and he
knew that the French shells were striking them. He rode down to the
commander and told him. The swart Frenchman grinned.
"My children are biting," he said, glancing affectionately at his guns.
"They're brave lads, and their teeth are long and sharp."
He looked at his signal man, and the guns let loose again with a force
that sent the air rushing away in violent waves. Batteries farther on
were firing also with great rapidity. In most of these the gunners were
directed by field telephones strung hastily, but the one near John still
depended upon signal men. It was composed of eight five-inch guns, and
John believed that its fire was most accurate and deadly.
Using his glasses again, he saw that the disturbance among those
manikins was increasing. They were running here and there, and many
seemed to vanish suddenly--he knew that they were blown away by the
shells. To the right of the great French battery some lighter field guns
were advancing. One drawn by eight horses had not yet unlimbered, and he
saw a shell strike squarely upon it. In the following explosion pieces
of steel whizzed by him and when the smoke cleared away the gun, the
gunners and the horses were all gone. The monster shell had blown
everything to pieces. The other guns hurried on, took up their positions
and began to fire. John shuddered violently, but in a moment or two, he,
too, forgot the little tragedy in the far more gigantic one that was
being played before him.
He rode back to General Vaugirard and told him that his order had been
obeyed. The general nodded, but did not take his glasses from the
horizon, where a long gray line was beginning to appear against the
green of the earth. "It goes well so far," John heard him say in the
under note which was audible beneath the thunder of the battle.
In a quarter of an hour the great batteries limbered up again, and once
more the French army went forward, the troops to lie down and wait
again, while the artillery worked with ferocious energy. It was yet a
battle of big guns, at least in the center. The armies were not near
enough to each other for rifles; in truth not near enough yet to be
seen. John, even with his glasses, could only discern the gray line
advancing, he could make little of its form or order or of what it was
trying to do.
But a light wind was now bringing smoke from one flank where the battle
was far heavier than in the center, and the concussion of the artillery
at that point became so frightful that the air seemed to come in waves
of the utmost violence and to beat upon the drum of the ear with the
force of a hammer. Owing to the wind John could not hear the battle on
the other flank so well, but he believed that it was being fought there
with equal fury and determination.
He was watching with such intentness that he did not hear the sweep of
an aeroplane behind him, but he did see Lannes run to General
Vaugirard's car and give him a note.
While the general read and pondered, Lannes turned toward the wheel on
which John sat. Although he tried to preserve calm, John knew that he
was tremendously excited. He had taken off his heavy glasses and his
wonderful gray eyes were flashing. It was obvious to his friend, who now
knew him so well, that he was moved by some tremendous emotion.
John rode up by the side of Lannes and said:
"What have you seen, Philip? You can tell a little at least, can't you?"
"More than a little! A lot! The _Arrow_ and I have looked over a great
area, John! Miles and miles and yet more miles! and wherever we went we
gazed down upon armies locked in battle, and beyond that were other
armies locked in battle, too! The nations meet in wrath! You can't see
it here, nor from anywhere on the earth! It's only in the air high
overhead that one can get even a partial view of its immensity! The
English army is off there on the flank, a full thirty miles away, and
you're not likely to see it today!"
He would have said more, but General Vaugirard beckoned to him, gave him
a note which he had written hastily, and in a few more minutes Lannes
was flitting like a swallow through the heavens. Then General
Vaugirard's car moved forward and brigade after brigade of the French
army resumed its advance also.
John felt that the great German machine had been met by a French machine
as great. Perhaps the master mind that thrills through an organism of
steel no less than one of human flesh was on the French side. He did not
know. The invisible hand thrusting forward the French armies was still
invisible to him. Yet he felt with the certainty of conviction that the
eye and the brain of one man were achieving a marvel. In some mysterious
manner the French defense had become an offense. The Republican troops
were now attacking and the Imperial troops were seeking to hold fast.
He seemed to comprehend it all in an instant, and a mighty joy surged
over him. De Rougemont saw his glistening eye and he asked curiously:
"What is it that you are feeling so strongly, Mr. Scott?"
"The thrill of the advance! The unknown plan, whatever it is, is
working! Your nation is about to be saved! I feel it! I know it!"
De Rougemont gazed at him, and then the light leaped into his own eyes.
"A prophet! A prophet!" he cried. "Inspired youth speaks!"
A great crisis may call into being a great impulse, and de Rougemont's
words were at once accepted as truth by all the young aides. Words of
fire, words vital with life had gone forth, predicting their triumph,
and as they rode among the troops carrying orders they communicated
their burning zeal to the men who were already eager for closer battle.
The storm of missiles from the cannon was increasing rapidly. John now
distinctly saw the huge German masses, not advancing but standing firm
to receive the French attack, their front a vast line of belching guns.
He knew that they would soon be within the area of rifle fire and he
knew with equal truth that it would take the valor of immense numbers,
wielded by the supreme skill of leaders to drive back the Germans.
The guns, some drawn by horses and others by motors, were moving forward
with them. When the horses were swept away by a shell, men seized the
guns and dragged them. Then they stopped again, took new positions and
renewed the rain of death on the German army.
They began to hear a whistle and hiss that they knew. It was that of the
bullets, and along the vast front they were coming in millions. But the
French were using their rifles, too, and at intervals the deep
thundering chant of the Marseillaise swept through their ranks. In spite
of shell, shrapnel and bullets, in spite of everything, the French army
in the center was advancing and John believed that the armies on the
other parts of the line were advancing, too.
The bullets struck around them, and then among them. One aide fell from
his cycle, and lay dead in the road, two more were wounded, but two
hundred thousand men, their artillery blazing death over their heads,
went on straight at the mouths of a thousand cannon.
Companies and regiments were swept away, but there was no check. Nor did
the other French armies, the huge links in the chain, stop. A feeling of
victory had swept along the whole gigantic battle front. They were
fighting for Paris, for their country, for the soil which they tended,
alive, and in which they slept, dead, and just at the moment when
everything seemed to have been lost they were saving all. The heroic age
of France had come again, and the Third Republic was justifying the
First.
The battle deepened and thickened to an extraordinary degree, as the
space between the two fronts narrowed. John for the first time saw the
German troops without the aid of glasses. They were mere outlines
against a fiery horizon, reddened by the mouths of so many belching
cannon, but they seemed to him to stand there like a wall.
Another giant shell burst near them, and two more members of the staff
fell from their cycles, dead before they touched the ground. That
convulsive shudder seized John again, but the crash of tremendous events
was so rapid that fear and horror alike passed in an instant. A piece of
the same shell struck General Vaugirard's car and put it out of action
at once. But the general leaped lightly to the ground, then swung his
immense bulk across one of the riderless motor cycles and advanced with
the surviving members of his staff. Imperturbable, he still swept the
field with his glasses. Two aides were now sent to the right with
messages, and a third, John himself, was despatched to the left on a
similar errand.
It was John's duty to tell a regiment to bear in further to the left and
close up a vacant spot in the line. He wheeled his cycle into a field,
and then passed between rows of grapevines. The regiment, its ranks much
thinned, was now about a hundred yards away, but shell and bullets alike
were sweeping the distance between.
Nevertheless, he rode on, his wheel bumping over the rough ground, until
he heard a rushing sound, and then blank darkness enveloped him. He fell
one way, and the motor cycle fell another.