Here again the trick of taking a message off the telephone and shouting
it forth from the mouth of a fox burrow was repeated. Whenever this
procedure came to pass a sergeant who had strained his vocal cords from
much giving of orders would swell out his chest and throw back his head
and shriek hoarsely with what was left of his voice, which wasn't much.
This meant a fury of noise resulting instantly and much white smoke to
follow. For a while the guns were fired singly and then they were fired
in salvos; and you might mark how the grass for fifty yards in front of
the muzzles would lie on the earth quite flat and then stand erect, and
how the guns, like shying bronchos, would leap backward upon their
carriages and then slide forward again as the air in the air cushions
took up the kick. Also we took note that the crews of the ten-
centimeters had built for themselves dugouts to sleep in and to live in,
and had covered the sod roofs over with straw and broken tree limbs. We
judged they would be very glad indeed to crawl into those same shelters
when night came, for they had been serving the guns all day and plainly
were about as weary as men could be.
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