At the same time he experienced a sensation of pleasure at the immunity
from mental sufferings that are generally supposed to afflict men under
these conditions. He felt like a man who unexpectedly finds a five-pound
note, the very existence of which he had forgotten, hidden away in some
unusual pocket. It was something of the same sensation that he used to
have at school, when by chance he saw other boys working at impositions
which he had himself escaped.

The time came when it was no longer expedient to remain in the wood, so
they advanced, flitting from tree to tree, back to the edge of the
forest. The view was rather restricted from where the Subaltern was,
apparently on the right of where the full force of the attack was
breaking.

"Plop-plop-plop," the machine-gun spluttered with an amazing air of
detached insistence. The machine-guns strike in battle quite a note of
their own. Shells, screeching and roaring in their frenzy, give an
impression of passion, of untameable wrath. Rifle-fire is as inconstant
in volume as piano music; there is something of human effort to be heard
in the "tap ... tap ... tap ... tap-tap-trrrrapp" of its crescendos and
diminuendoes. But the machine-gun is different from these. It strikes a
higher note, and can be heard above the roar of the bursting shells. It
is mechanical, there is nothing about it of human passion; it is a
machine, and a most deadly one at that.

The Colonel dashed out into the open and dragged a wounded gunner into
the comparative shelter of the wood. Many more acts scarcely less heroic
were performed.

At last the moment came to retire. The guns had already rattled through