The correspondent had no opportunity to inspect at close range the
16-1/2-inch guns, the "growlers" of Liege, Namur, and other fortresses,
which Krupp and the German Army uncovered as the surprise of this war.
They could be heard even from Metz speaking at five-minute intervals. A
battery of them, dug into the ground so that only the gun muzzles
projected above the pits, was observed in action at a distance of about
a half mile, the flash of flames being visible even at this distance.

Their smaller sisters were less coy. A dismounted battery of the
intermediate calibre, details of which are not available for
publication, was encountered by the roadside, awaiting repairs to the
heavy traction engine in whose train it travels in sections along the
country roads, while the German 8-1/4-inch (21 centimeter) and the
Austrian 12-inch (30.5 centimeter) batteries were seen in action.

The heavy German battery lay snugly hidden in a wood on the rolling
heights of the Cote Lorraine. Better off than the French, whose aviators
had for days repeatedly scrutinized every acre of land in the vicinity
looking for these guns, we had fairly accurate directions how to find
the battery, but even then it required some search and doubling back and
forth before a languid artilleryman lounging by the roadside pointed
with thumb over shoulder toward the hidden guns.

These and the artillerymen were enjoying their midday rest, a pause
which sets in every day with the regularity of the luncheon hour in a
factory. The guns, two in this particular position, stood beneath a
screen of thickly branching trees, the muzzles pointing toward round
openings in this leafy roof. The gun carriages were screened with
branches. The shelter tents of the men and the house for the ammunition
had also been covered with green, and around the position a hedge of
boughs kept off the prying eyes of possible French spies wandering
through the woods.

It was the noon pause, but the Lieutenant in charge of the guns, anxious
to show them off to advantage, volunteered to telephone the battery
commander, in his observation post four miles nearer the enemy, for
permission to fire a shot or two against a village in which French
troops were gathering for the attack. This battery had just finished
with Les Paroches, a French barrier fort across the Meuse, and was now
devoting its attention to such minor tasks. Only forts really counted,
said the Lieutenant, recalling Fort