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All of them were expert rifle shots who came from the support platoon of the assault troops on the left. Using the forest's undergrowth to shield them, they passed unharmed through the bullet-swept belt which the Germans were throwing around Hill No. 223, and reached the valley. Above them was a canopy of lead. To the north they heard the heavy cannonading of that part of the battle.

On the last day of April we crossed the Rapidan, fording its breast-deep current, considered too strong for the pontoons, and wondering, especially as the cannonading of the evening previous indicated resistance ahead, that our advance was not at this point impeded.

He did not hear her how should he hear her low tones, when he heard not the cannonading of the storm that shook the house to its foundations? "Mr. Willcoxen!" she said once more. But he moved not a muscle. "Mr. Willcoxen!" she repeated, laying her hand upon his arm. He looked up. The expression of haggard despair softened out of his countenance. "Is it you, my dear?" he said.

Breastworks were the order of the day following, and at noon we were enjoying our coffee in a cleared space, behind a ridge of logs and limbs that fronted our entire Division, and which we would have been content to hold against any attacking force. Cannonading continued at intervals, with occasional musketry firing.

The officer soon returned with the report that Hooker was all right, that the cannonading was only a part of a little rear-guard fight, two sections of artillery making all the noise, the reverberations from point to point in the adjacent mountains echoing and reechoing till it seemed that at least fifty guns were engaged.

On the twelfth the regiment was inspected by Captain Armstrong, of Kilpatrick's staff. The following day we had an interesting mounted-drill. We cannot keep idle. This afternoon, at two o'clock, we received orders to prepare to move at a moment's notice. Cannonading is distinctly heard in the direction of Warrenton.

Violent cannonading kept up in the whole of this sector. By the 28th the Germans had captured three successive lines of French trenches and held them against eight counterattacks. After exploding mines the Germans made an attack on both sides of the road between Vimy and Neuville and stormed French positions between 500 and 600 yards long.

With this poor "coal endurance," as the modern expression has it, the captain decided to fill up as he could. We therefore took the schooner in tow, and were transferring from her, when the sound of cannonading was heard.

Day after day this most extraordinary contest, half flight and half battle continued, every promontory on the shores covered all the time with spectators, who listened to the distant booming of the guns, and watched the smokes which arose from the cannonading and the conflagrations. One great galleon after another fell a prey.

The Germans, however, were not looking for toads. Before long such a cannonading began that the echoes reached the farthest ends of the valley, telling every one that not even the rocks were able to withstand the Germans. 'Those Swabians are a hard race, muttered Slimak, as he gazed on the giants that had been dashed to pieces.