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Updated: August 18, 2024
Half a dozen of the men, and all the officers, followed him. That was just a week ago. Captain Wagstaffe broke the silence at last. "It's a rotten business, war," he said pensively "when you come to think of it. Hallo, there goes the first star-shell! Come along, Bobby!" Dusk had fallen.
Lucia's tired little body rested, but her eyes never relaxed their watch in the darkness. The fire kept up steadily, and at irregular intervals a star-shell would illuminate the high mountains. Towards midnight there was an extra loud explosion, and once more the terrifying flames seemed to encircle Cellino. Lucia wondered dully what had been struck.
At intervals in the night the two mountain guns on Observation Hill kept firing star-shell to reveal any possible attack. But none came, and the rest of the day was very quiet. My time was occupied in getting off a brief heliogram, and sending out another Kaffir with news of Saturday's defence. Two have been driven back.
It was pockmarked with small shell-holes and pitted with large craters, many of them full of water, all slimy with mud. Phipps-Herrick nearly slipped into one of the deepest, but a lively kick warned his followers of the danger, and they pulled him back by the heels. Now and then a star-shell looped across the spongy sky, casting a lurid illumination over the ghastly field.
I had to watch the black hollow of the little wood, and at every star-shell the creamy expanse which divided our refuge from the distant hazy railing of the trees along the road. He told me what to do in case of alarm and left me quite alone. Alone, I shivered. Fatigue had emptied my head and was weighing on my heart.
At that instant there swung two red lights, and "DO!" said the regiment. DO means TWO, sahib, but it sounded like the thump of ordnance. "Draw sabers!" commanded Colonel Kirby, and the rear ranks drew. The front-rank men had lances. By the light of a star-shell I could plainly see the Sikh officer and trooper. I recognized the charger a beast with the devil in him and the speed of wind.
Now and then in the light of some star-shell their figures were disclosed, bending and raising the forms of the wounded, or wielding pick and shovel. "Officer." "Dead?" "Sure." "Search." From the shaded lantern, lowered to just above the body, a yellowish glare fell on face and breast. The hands of the searcher moved in that little pool of light. The bearer who was taking notes bent down.
"The only trouble about this place," said Ayling, as he surveyed the last position, "is that my fire will be masked by that house with the clump of trees beside it." The Engineer produced a small note-book, and wrote in it by the light of a convenient star-shell. "Right-o!" he said. "I'll have the whole caboodle pushed over for you by to-morrow night. Anything else?"
After the North Sea Wind fog, a general calm had settled down upon that death-scarred region. Over the front and about No-Man's-Land an occasional flare or star-shell would go up. One of these came unusually close to the swiftly moving Fokker. Immediately after that came bombing from Archies stationed along the enemy front.
The moon is stronger now, but it is barely possible to distinguish objects clearly for more than a few yards. A star-shell bursts, and heads sink below the parapet. A German bullet passes overhead, with a sound exactly like the crack of a whip. Silence and comparative darkness return. The heads go up again. "I'll give him five minutes more, and then go and look for him," says Simson. "Hallo!"
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