the ground, battalions advancing in good order along the roads, and
mounted men galloping about on the higher ground. But there was
nothing of the sort.

In front of me, about 600 yards off, and under cover of the brow of a
hill carpeted with russet stubble, I saw two batteries of artillery,
firing their guns. I looked intently. The pieces were in perfect line
and the gunners at their posts. The shots were fired at regular
intervals and with cool deliberation. The gunners took their time, and
seemed to be working very casually. I had expected to see them fairly
excited: the men running under a hail of shells, teams brought up at a
gallop as soon as a few salvoes had been fired, and the guns whirled
off at full speed and lined up in battery again some hundreds of
yards further off.

On the contrary, these guns seemed to be planted there for good. The
limbers, which were massed to the rear under cover of a slope, looked
very much like the sections of munitions I had seen just before. The
men were sleeping in the shadows of their horses, and the horses were
asleep on their feet in their appointed places. The only man standing
was a stout-looking adjutant who was walking up and down with his
hands in his pockets. With his eyes on the ground he seemed to be
counting his steps. And meanwhile, the two batteries went on firing
salvoes of four at a time. When one was finished there was a pause of
two or three minutes. Then the other battery took it up.

But Wattrelot interrupted my reverie: "Look over there, sir.... _Ça
barde!_" I looked in the direction he was pointing out. And now I no
longer felt the uneasy feeling that had come over me at the sight of
what was going on here. Above a height that overtopped the hill on