But the
French lights continued to throw an intense vivid white blaze over the
advancing columns, broad German faces and stalwart German figures
standing out vividly. Officers, reckless of death, waving their swords
and shouting the word of command, led them on.
The French field guns behind their trenches opened, sending showers of
missiles over their heads and into the charging ranks, and the trenches
themselves blazed with the fire of the rifles.
"A surprise that isn't a surprise?" shouted Carstairs. "They thought to
catch us napping in the night and the snow!"
The battle spread with astonishing rapidity over a front of more than a
mile, and in the driving snow and white gloom it assumed a frightful
character. The German guns fired for a little while over their troops at
the French artillery beyond, but soon ceased lest they pour shells into
their own men, and the heavy French batteries ceased also, lest they,
too, mow down friend as well as foe. But the light machine guns posted
in the trenches kept up a rapid and terrible crackle. The front lines of
the Germans were cut down again and again, always to be replaced by
fresh men, who unflinchingly exposed their bodies to the deadly hail.
"The massed attack!" exclaimed Wharton. "What courage! Nobody was ever
more willing to die for victory than these Germans!"
Even in the moment of danger and utmost excitement he could not refuse
tribute to the enemy.
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