d of
certain Divisions and our presence had to be reported. We were left
then, Marie Ivanovna, Anna Petrovna, Andrey Vassilievitch, Trenchard
and I, all rather close together, uncomfortable, desolate and shy, as
boys feel on their first day at school. The battery on our left was
very near to us and we could see the sharp flash of its flame behind
the trees. The noise that it made was terrific, a sharp, angry, clumsy
noise, as though some huge giant clad in mail armour was flinging his
body, in a violent rage, against an iron door that echoed through an
empty house--my same iron door that I had heard all night. The rage of
the giant spread beyond his immediate little circle of trees and one
wondered at the men in the trenches because they were indifferent to
his temper.

The noise of the more distant batteries was still, as it had been
before, like the clanging of many iron doors very mild and gentle
against the clamour of our own enraged fury. The Austrian reply seemed
like the sleepy echo of this confusion, so sleepy and pleasant that
one felt almost friendly to the enemy.

Our own battery was inconsistent in his raging. Had he only chosen to
fling himself at his door every three minutes, say, or even every
minute, we could have prepared ourselves, but he was moved by nothing,
apparently, but his own irrational impulse. There would be a pause of
two minutes, then three furious explosions, then a pause of five
minutes, then another explosion.... I mastered quickly my impulse to
leap into the air at every report, by a kind of prolonged extension in
my mind of one report into another. Little Andrey Vassilievitch was
not so successful. At each explosion his body jerked as though it had
been worked by wires; then he glanced round to see whether any one had
noticed his agitation, then drew himself up, brushed off imaginary
dust from his uniform, coughed and frowned. Trenchard stood close to
Marie Ivanovna and looked at her anxiously once or twice as though he
would like to speak to her, but she, holding herself very stiffly,
watched with sternness the whole world as though she personally had
arranged the spectacle and was responsible for its success.

Soon Semyonov came back and said that he must go on to some further
trenches to discover the best position for us. To my intense surprise
Andrey Vassilievitch asked whether he might accompany him. I fancy
that he felt that he would venture anything to escape our adjacency to