oundary was a wheat-field. Here a
farmer had commenced his fall ploughing. His plough was in the furrow
where he had left it when he unhitched his team for the day, before an
orderly had come to tell him that he must move out of his house
overnight. The wheat stubble swept on up to a knoll in the distance.

All the landscape in front of Fracasse's company seemed to have been
deserted; no moving figures were anywhere in sight; no sign of the
enemy's infantry. No trains came or went along the lines of steel into
the mountain tunnel, which had been mined at a dozen points by the
Browns. No vehicles and no foot-passengers dotted the highway into the
town. Over the mountains and over the plain, planes and dirigibles moved
in wide circles restively, watching for a signal as hawks watch for
prey. Suspense this--suspense of such a swift vibration that it was like
a taut G string of a violin under the bow!

Faintly the town clock was heard striking the hour. From eight to nine
and nine to ten Fracasse's men waited; waited until the machine was
ready and Westerling should throw in the clutch; waited until the troops
were in place for the first move before he hurled his battalions
forward. Every pawn of flesh facing the white posts had a thousand
thoughts whirling in such a medley that he could be said to have no
thought at all, only an impression juggled by destiny. No one would have
confessed what he felt, while physical inactivity gave free rein to
mental activity. That thing of a nation's nightmare; that thing for
which generations had drilled without its materializing; that thing of
speculation, of hazard, of horror; that thing of quick action and
long-enduring consequences was coming.

They did not know how the captain at their back received his orders;
they only heard the note of the whistle, with a command familiar to a
trained instinct on the edge of anticipation. It released a spring in
their nerve-centres. They responded as the wheels respond when the
throttle is opened. Jumping to their feet they broke into a run, bodies
bent, heads down, like the peppered silhouette that faced Westerling's
desk. What they had done repeatedly in drills and manoeuvres they were
now doing in war, mechanically as marionettes.

"Come on! The bullet is not made that can get me! Come on!" cried the
giant Eugene Aronson.

He leaped over a white post and then over the plough, which was also in
his path. Little Peterkin felt his legs tremb