You couldn't see any monastery; I don't
even know that there was one--nothing but lean faces with tonsured tops
that nodded in unison and lied fearfully.
The gunfire began to be heavy about that time, although nothing like the
thousand-throated bedlam of Flanders. As neither side could see the
other and neither had any ranges marked, my guess is that the French
were advertising their advance--doing a little propaganda that was cheap
for all concerned except the tax-payers. And the Syrian army was
shooting back crazily, sending over long shots on the off chance, more
to encourage themselves than for any other reason.
The sensation was rather like riding in an ambulance away from the
battle instead of toward it, for you couldn't see anything and you had a
sense of helpless detachment from it all, as if a power you couldn't
control were carrying you away from a familiar destiny to one that you
couldn't imagine. It wasn't so much like a dream as like a different,
real existence that you couldn't understand because it bore no kind of
relation to anything in the past.
Anyhow, we bumped and blundered on until dawn came, streaked with
wonderful rolling mist, and gave a glimpse at intervals of a wide plain
sloping toward the west, with long lines of infantry and here and there
guns extended across it in parallels drawn north and south.
Pages:
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224