ound
shrewdly placed and their vulnerability overestimated. The thunders of
batteries hammering them became a routine of existence, like the passing
of trains to one living near a railroad. The guns went on while tea was
being served; they ushered in dawn and darkness; they were going when
sleep came to those whom they later awakened with a start. Fights as
desperate as the one around the house became features of this period,
which was only a warming-up practice for the war demon before the orgy
of the impending assault on the main line.

Marta began to realize the immensity of the chess-board and of the
forces engaged in more than the bare statement of numbers and distances.
If a first attack on a position failed, the wires from the Galland house
repeated their orders to concentrate more guns and attack again. In the
end the Browns always yielded, but grudgingly, calculatingly, never
being taken by surprise. The few of them who fell prisoners said, "God
with us! We shall win in the end!" and answered no questions. Gradually
the Gray army began to feel that it was battling with a mystery which
was fighting under cover, falling back under cover--a tenacious,
watchful mystery that sent sprays of death into every finger of flesh
that the Grays thrust forward in assault.

"Another position taken. Our advance continues," was the only news that
Westerling gave to the army, his people, and the world, which forgot its
sports and murders and divorce cases in following the progress of the
first great European war for two generations. He made no mention of the
costs; his casualty lists were secret. The Gray hosts were sweeping
forward as a slow, irresistible tide; this by Partow's own admission. He
announced the loss of a position as promptly as the Grays its taking. He
published a daily list of casualties so meagre in contrast to their own
that the Grays thought it false; he made known the names of the killed
and wounded to their relatives. Yet the seeming candor of his press
bureau included no straw of information of military value to the enemy.

Westerling never went to tea at the Gallands' with the other officers,
for it was part of his cultivation of greatness to keep aloof from his
subordinates. His meetings with Marta happened casually when he went out
into the garden. Only once had he made any reference to the "And then"
of their interview in the arbor.

"I am winning battles for _you_!" he had exclaimed with that thing