The rifle firing started ten minutes after dawn, and it was all over in
less than half an hour; but I can't describe exactly how the finish
came, because the wind was toward us and the morning mist blew along in
blanketing white masses that only allowed you a momentary glimpse and
then shut off the view.
We were about a mile behind the firing-line and I couldn't see Feisul's
car or any of the others. For the moment there was just one clear line
of vision, straight from where I sat to the nearest infantry. I could
see about fifty yards of the line and perhaps that many men; and they
were blazing away furiously over a low earthwork, although I couldn't
see a sign of the French. There was hardly any artillery firing at that
time.
Suddenly without any obvious reason the men whose backs I was watching
broke and ran. The mist obscured them instantly and the line of vision
shifted, so that bit by bit I saw I dare say a mile of the firing line.
The whole lot were running for their lives and, look where I would,
there wasn't a sign of a Frenchman anywhere.
I should say it took about ten minutes for the first of them to reach
the dirt road, where our autos stood hub-deep in mud, and by that time
we had shoved and pulley-hauled them into movement, our engines making
as much row as a nest of machine-guns as they struggled against the
strain.
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