were
already at hand. And then came the expected order, "Double time!"

The pace in double time, say the regulations, is thirty-six inches long;
the cadence is at the rate of one hundred and eighty steps a minute. It
is not a run. I have heard the captain call back a lieutenant and his
platoon: "I didn't say Run; I said Double time!"--"An easy run," says the
little blue book. An easy run! With eighteen pounds on the back, and
eight around the waist, and another nine in the hand--an easy run! Oh, in
that dust, and up that slope, it was pound, pound, pound, till my heart
thumped like the engine of a little Ford at high gear on a stiff grade,
and my knees (how well the ancients knew the importance of those joints!)
were like lead. The breath was failing, failing--till at last in a burst
of relief I got my second wind. But poor Corder! Three times, as I
watched him laboring in front of me, he flagged. Three times he visibly
mustered his powers and pounded on. The fourth time he was spent. He had
already stepped out of the column, to let us pass him, when I heard the
welcome whistle. "Halt!" Corder had strength to take his place again, we
were hustled into the ditch for cover, and I found a grateful position on
the ground. There was no talk; everyone was too busy with a shortness of
breath.

The firing in our front was now more systematic, and was spreading to the
left. It was not long before we were ordered to the right of the road,
and marching in the ditch, went forward. Then double time again, for a
short distance, and the line swung out into the road as it turned to the
right into a field. Suddenly there was the major, ordering us back into
the ditch, and his eye met mine in the midst of one of his remonstrances.
"The road is always unsafe!" Look to yourself, major, I thought, as
obediently I ducked aside and left him in the position of danger. A
ploughed field brought us to a walk; we climbed a stiff ascent, then
found ourselves facing a nasty bit of thick wood, through which we were
ordered in squad columns. Down a slope and across a gully and up again;
then we went through more open country, but still among trees. Finally we
aligned ourselves behind the top of a little rise, where we might
comfortably sit or kneel, having plenty of cover behind logs or stones.
The enemy that tried to cross the ravine below us would have a surprise.

There followed all the confusion of an attack in the woods. We heard the
enemy com