It was as impersonal as the drive of the sea along a
breakwater.
Thus it went: a pause--a gathering of sound like the race of
an incoming wave; then the high-flung heads of breakers
spouting white up the face of a groyne. Suddenly, a seventh
wave broke and spread the shape of its foam like a plume
overtopping all the others.
"That's one of our torpilleurs--what you call
trench-sweepers," said the observer among the whispering leaves.
Some one crossed the platform to consult the map with its
ranges. A blistering outbreak of white smokes rose a little
beyond the large plume. It was as though the tide had struck
a reef out yonder.
Then a new voice of tremendous volume lifted itself out of a
lull that followed. Somebody laughed. Evidently the voice
was known.
"That is not for us," a gunner said. "They are being waked up
from------" he named a distant French position. "So and so is
attending to them there. We go on with our usual work. Look!
Another torpilleur."
"THE BARBARIAN"
Again a big plume rose; and again the lighter shells broke at
their appointed distance beyond it. The smoke died away on
that stretch of trench, as the foam of a swell dies in the
angle of a harbour wall, and broke out afresh half a mile
lower down.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25