stagger, the reverberation rolls raging away to the rear, everything quakes. Our faces change imperceptibly. We are not, indeed, in the front-line, but only in the reserves, yet in every face can be read: This is the Front, now we are within its embrace.
It is not fear. Men who have been up as often as we have become thick skinned. Only the young recruits are agitated. Kat explains to them: “That was a twelve-inch. You hear the explosion first and afterwards comes the sound of the gun.”
But the hollow sound of the firing does not reach us. It is swallowed up in the general murmur of the front. Kat listens: “There’ll be a bombardment to-night.”
We all listen. The front is restless. “The Tommies are firing already,” says Kropp.
The shelling can be heard distinctly. It is the English batteries to the right of our section. They are beginning an hour too soon. According to us they start punctually at ten o’clock.
“What’s got them?” says Müller, “their clocks must be fast.”
“There’ll be a bombardment, I tell you, I can feel it in my bones.” Kat shrugs his shoulders.
Three shells land beside us. The burst of flame shoots across the fog, the fragments howl and drone.
52
