is coming towards you, there is a sharper hiss in it,
like a whip. It gives you a second or two to get under cover and then
crack-whizz as the shrapnel whizzes out. The heavy shells from the
monitors, etc., make a noise more like a landslide of pebbles down a
beach, only blurred as if echoed. Bobbety's "silk dress swishing
through the air" does his imagination credit, but is not quite
accurate, nor does it express the spirit of the things quite!

About 3.30 we had orders to cross to the left bank. As we passed over
the bridge, we put up two duck, who had been swimming there peacefully
with the shells flying over their heads every half minute for hours.
When we reached the left bank we marched as if to reinforce our right
flank. Presently the Brigadier made us line out into echelon of
companies in line in single rank, so that from a distance we looked
like a brigade, instead of three companies. About 4 we came up to a
howitzer battery and lay down about 200 yards from it, thus:

[Illustration]

We had lain there about ten minutes when a hiss, crack, whizz, and
shells began to arrive, invariably in pairs, about where I've put the
1 and 2. We had a fine view. The first notice we had of each shell was
the sudden appearance of a white puff, about thirty feet above ground,
then a spatter of dust about thirty yards to the right, then the
hiss-crack-whizz. They were ranging on the battery, but after a minute
or two they spotted the ammunition column, and a pair of shells burst
at 3, then a pair at 4. So the column retreated in a hurry along the
dotted arrow, and the shells following them began to catch us in
enfilade. So Foster made us rise and move to the left in file. Just as
we were up, a pair burst right over my platoon. I can't conceive why
nobody was hit. I noticed six bullets strike the ground in a
semi-circle between me and the nearest man three paces away, and
everyone else noticed the same kind of thing, but nobody was touched.
I don't suppose the enemy saw us at all: anyway, the next pair pitched
100 yards beyond us, following the mules, and wounded three men in C.
Company: and the next got two men of B.--all flesh wounds and not
severe. They never touched the ammunition column.

We lay down in a convenient ditch, and only one more pair came our
way, as the enemy was ranging back to the battery. Of this pair, one
hit the edge of the ditch and buried itself without exploding, and the
other missed with its bullets