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When the battle was over they would come, or, maybe, before it was over. But through how many hours had there been the sickening monotony of artillery and rifle-fire, the bruit of angry metal, in which the roar of angrier men was no more than a discord in the guttural harmony. Her senses became almost deadened under the strain. Her cheeks grew thinner, her eyes took on a fixed look.
On these are the Boer trenches, tier above tier, while their guns are posted on the lower ground between. It looks an impregnable position. The Royal Irish, I hear, are attacking the right hand bastion; the Munsters, I think, the left, and there is a continuous rattle of rifle-fire from both. Our teams, waggons, and limbers, have been shell-dodging under the brow of the hill.
Now he lies repeating hour after hour, "How it splashes! how it splashes!" and at night he shrieks and cries.... In that miserable Chancery hospital, swept by rifle-fire and full of such cries and groans, the nights have become dreaded, until it is a wonder the wounded still live.... Still, with all this, the Yamen messengers continue to come and go with clockwork regularity.
The rifle-fire which has crackled all day on the ranges has long ceased. The spluttering of machine guns in the training camps vexes the ear no more. The heavy explosions of shell testing are over for another day. Save for the sharp challenge of a sentry here and there, and the distant shriek of a railway engine, there is almost unbroken silence for a while.
I marvel at it now, when, in solid phalanx, our foes might easily have mowed us down like a thin line of standing grain; for their numbers seemed unending, while flight on flight of arrows and fierce sheets of rifle-fire swept our ranks as we rode on to death or victory.
Remember, also, that though you may arrange matters so that you cannot be enfiladed by rifle-fire, yet you may be open to it from long range, by means of gun or pompom fire. There are few straight trenches that cannot be enfiladed from somewhere, if the enemy can only get there.
At any rate, if the attack came, I hoped it would last through the next day. Switching off the light, we lay down and awaited events. But not for long. The order came to man the trench. Out we tumbled, and took up our positions. Suddenly out of the blackness, in the direction of the German positions, came the rattle of rifle-fire, and the bullets began to whistle overhead.
Hard upon its heels arose a most lively rifle-fire, which showed clearly enough that the preparatory bombardment was over, and the real attack about to begin. Higher and higher rose the note struck by the rifle-fire, as the contest thickened. Never had they heard such intensity of concentration before. Now up, now down, it rocked on in one sweeping, continuous note for nearly half-an-hour.
At the corners of this colonnade, four tall white minarets towered toward the sky minarets from which now a pretty lively rifle-fire was developing. A number of small buildings were scattered about the square; but all were dominated by the black impressive cube of the Ka'aba itself, the Bayt Ull
Even then we were not certain. Then as we crouched listening, each reading the face of the others and no one venturing to breathe, there came the sharp, broken roll of musketry. It was unmistakable. The men gave a great gasp of relief, and without orders sprang to "attention." A ripple of rifle-fire, wild and scattered, answered the first volley. "They have engaged the pickets," said Laguerre.
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