A railway line ran here across the rolling hedgeless fields, and just at
the point where my companion and I struck it there was a dip in the land
and a high embankment which hid the plain beyond; but from that plain
beyond one heard the separate fire of the advancing line in its
scattered order. We climbed the embankment, and from its ridge we saw
over two miles or more of stubble, the little creeping bunches of the
attack. What was resisting, or where it lay, one could only guess. Some
hundreds of yards before us to the east, with the sloping sun full on
it, a line of thicket, one scattered wood and then another, an
imperceptible lifting of the earth here and there marked the opposing
firing line. Two pompoms could be spotted exactly, for the flashes were
clear through the underwood. And still the tide of the advance continued
to flow, and the little groups came up and fed it, one after another and
another, in the centre where we were, and far away to the north and
right away to the south the countryside was alive with it. The action
was beginning to take on something of that final movement and decision
which makes the climax of manoeuvres look so great a game. But in a
little while that general creeping forward was checked: there were
orders coming from the umpires, and a sort of lull fell over each
position held. My companion said to me:
"Let us go forward now over the intervening zone and in among Picquart's
men, and get well behind their line, and see whether there is a rally or
whether before the end of this day they begin to fall back again.
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