tting and attack the people on top of
it. And the spectacle at once became comprehensible, and took on the
human interest it had lacked. The men seemed to feel this, for they
sprang up and began cheering and shouting, and fired in an upright
position, and by so doing exposed themselves at full length to the fire
from the men below. The Turks in front of the village ran back into it
again, and those in the fields beyond turned and began to move away, but
in that same plodding, aggravating fashion. They moved so leisurely that
there was a pause in the noise along the line, while the men watched them
to make sure that they were really retreating. And then there was a long
cheer, after which they all sat down, breathing deeply, and wiping the
sweat and dust across their faces, and took long pulls at their canteens.

The different trenches were not all engaged at the same time. They acted
according to the individual judgment of their commanding officer, but
always for the general good. Sometimes the fire of the enemy would be
directed on one particular trench, and it would be impossible for the men
in that trench to rise and reply without haying their heads carried away;
so they would lie hidden, and the men in the trenches flanking them would
act in their behalf, and rake the enemy from the front and from every
side, until the fire on that trench was silenced, or turned upon some
other point. The trenches stretched for over half a mile in a
semicircle, and the little hills over which they ran lay at so many
different angles, and rose to such different heights, that sometimes the
men in one trench fired directly over the heads of their own men. From
many trenches in the first line it was impossible to see any of the Greek
soldiers except those immediately beside you. If you looked back or
beyond on either hand there was nothing to be seen but high hills topped
with fresh earth, and the waving yellow grass, and the glaring blue sky.

General Smolenski directed the Greeks from the plain to the far right of
the town; and his presence there, although none of the men saw nor heard
of him directly throughout the entire day, was more potent for good than
would have been the presence of five thousand other men held in reserve.
He was a mile or two miles away from the trenches, but the fact that he
was there, and that it was Smolenski who was giving the orders, was
enough. Few had ever seen Smolenski, but his name was suffi