"What do you see?"
"Only a veil of snow so thick that my eyes can't penetrate it."
"And that's all you will see. Papa Vaugirard is a good man and he cares
for his many children, but he's making a mistake tonight."
"I think not," said John, dropping suddenly back into the trench. A
blinding white glare, cutting through the gloom of the snow, had dazzled
him for a moment.
"The searchlight again!" exclaimed Wharton.
"And it means something," said John.
The blaze, whiter and more intense than usual, played for a few minutes
over the French trenches, sweeping to right and left and back again and
then dying away at a far distant point. After it came the same white
gloom and deep silence.
"Just a way of greeting," said Carstairs.
"I think not," said John. "Papa Vaugirard makes few mistakes. To my mind
the intensity of the silence is sinister. Often we hear the Germans
singing in their trenches, but now we hear nothing."
Another half-hour of the long and trying waiting followed. Then the
white light flared again for a moment, and powerful lights behind the
French lines flared back, but did not go out. The great beams, shooting
through the white gloom, disclosed masses of men in gray uniforms and
spiked helmets rushing forward.
CHAPTER II
THE YOUNG AUSTRIAN
It seemed to John that the heavy German masses were almost upon them,
when they were revealed in the glare of the searchlights, sweeping
forward in solid masses, and uttering a tremendous hurrah.
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