ground and tried to hide behind a stone no matter how small.

"Nothing but a spent shot! Forward, boys!" he cried, the thought of
being a support to his men almost making him cheerful. But the words
were not out of his mouth when other shots whizzed through the air. In
spite of himself, his body twitched backward and his head sank lower
between his shoulders. That made him stiffen his muscles and grind his
teeth in rage. It was not the violence with which the scream flew toward
him that made him twitch. It was the strange precision with which the
circle of the thing's flight (exactly like a diagram at a lecture on
artillery) curved in front of him. It was this unnatural feeling of
perceiving a sound more with the eye than with the ear that made the
will powerless.

Something had to be done to create the illusion of not being wholly
defenseless.

"Forward, run!" he shouted at the top of his voice, holding his hands to
his mouth to make a megaphone.

His men stormed forward as if relieved. The tension left their faces;
each one was somehow busied with himself, stumbled, picked himself up,
grasped some piece of equipment that was coming loose; and in the
general snorting and gasping, the whistle of the approaching shells
passed almost unobserved.

After a while it came to Captain Marschner's consciousness that some one
was hissing into his left ear. He turned his head and saw Weixler
running beside him, scarlet in the face.