And all the while imagine the Germans out there, creeping through the
trees, crowding along the trenches, sifting out and settling down into
the old favorite formation, making all ready for one more desperate
trial of it, stacking the cards for yet another deep gambling plunge on
the great German game--the massed attack in solid lines at close
interval. The plan no doubt was the same old plan--a quick and
overwhelming torrent of shell fire, a sudden hurricane of high
explosive on the forward trench, and then, before the supports could be
hurried up and brought in any weight through the reeking, shaking
inferno of the shell-smitten communication trenches, the surge forward
of line upon line, wave upon wave, of close-locked infantry.
But the density of mass, the solid breadth, the depth, bulk, and weight
of men so irresistible at close-quarter work, is an invitation to utter
destruction if it is caught by the guns before it can move. And so this
time it was caught. Given their target, given the word "Go," the guns
wasted no moment. The first battery ready burst a quick couple of
ranging shots over the wood. A spray of torn leaves whirling from the
tree tops, the toss of a broken branch, showed the range correct; and
before the first rounds' solid white cotton-wooly balls of smoke had
thinned and disappeared, puff-puff-puff the shrapnel commenced to burst
in clouds over the wood.
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