o confess to a shiver along
the spine. Some saw pictures of home, of sweethearts; some saw nothing.
Some were in a coma of merciless suspense that grew more and more
unendurable, until it seemed that anything to break it would be welcome.

Occasionally came a sob from a man gone hysterical under the strain, a
moan of mental misery; and once a laugh, a strange, hiccoughy, delirious
laugh, a strident attempt at the wit that keeps up courage; and from
Pilzer, the butcher's son, a string of oaths mixed with brimstone and
obscenity. After each outbreak an automatic, irritable whisper for
silence came from an officer. Legs and arms, bodies and souls and brains
in a nauseating press! Humanity reckoned by the pound, high-priced from
breeding and rearing and training; yet very cheap.

Hearts thumped and watches ticked off the time, until suddenly the
heavens were racked by the prologue of the guns. Child's play that
baptism of shell fire in the first charge of the war beside later
thunders; and these, in turn, mild beside this terrific outburst, with
all the artillery concentrated to support the ram in a sudden blast. The
passing projectiles formed the continuous scream and roar of some
many-toned siren that penetrated the flesh as well as the ears with its
sound. Orders could not have been heard if given. There was no need for
orders. Fracasse, counting off the minutes between him and eternity on
his watch face by his flash-light, saw that ten had passed. Then his
finger that pressed a button, his brain that spoke to his hand, were
those of an automaton acting by time release. He exploded the mine. This
was the signal for the charge; for all the legs of the ram to move.

XLIII

JOVE'S ISOLATION

An hour or so before the attack the telegraph instruments in the Galland
house had become pregnantly silent. There were no more orders to give;
no more reports to come from the troops in position until the assault
was made. Officers of supply ceased to transmit routine matters over the
wire, while they strained their eyes toward the range. Officers of the
staff moved about restlessly, glancing at their watches and going to the
windows frequently to see if the mist still held.

No one entered the library where Westerling was seated alone with
nothing to do. His suspense was that of the mothers who longed for news
of their sons at the front; his helplessness that of a man in a hospital
lobby waiting on the result of an opera