of which had suffered loss from shrapnel fire.

Along the roadside through the Cote Lorraine were here and there graves
with rude crosses and penciled inscriptions. At the western edge of the
forest the battle panorama of the Meuse Valley suddenly opened out, the
hills falling away again steeply to the level valley below. The towns
below--St. Mihiel and Banoncour--seemed absolutely deserted, not a
person being visible even around the large barracks in the latter town.
While the little party of officers and spectators, including the
correspondent, were watching the artillery duel on the far horizon or
endeavoring to pick out the infantry positions, a shrapnel suddenly
burst directly before them, high in the air. There was a general stir,
the assumption being that the French had taken the group on the
hillside for a battery staff picking out positions for the guns; but as
other shots were fired it was seen that the shrapnel was exploding
regularly above the barracks, a mile and a half away, the French
evidently suspecting the presence of German troops there.

A ten-mile ride southward led to the position of the Austrian 12-inch
battery. The two guns this time were planted by the side of the road,
screened only in front by a little wood, but exposed to view from both
sides, the rear, and above. For this greater exposure the battery had
paid correspondingly, several of its men having been killed or wounded
by hostile fire. Here, as in the German batteries, the war work in
progress went on with a machinelike regularity and absence of
spectacular features more characteristic of a rolling mill than a
battle. The men at the guns went through their work with the deftness
and absence of confusion of high-class mechanics. The heavy shells were
rolled to the guns, hoisted by a chain winch to the breech opening, and
discharged in uninteresting succession, a short pause coming after each
shot, until the telephonic report from the observation stand was
received. The battery had been firing all day at Fort Lionville, at a
range of 9,400 meters, (nearly six miles,) and the battery commander was
then endeavoring to put out of action the only gun turret which still
answered the fire. The task of finding this comparatively minute target,
forty or fifty feet in diameter, was being followed with an accuracy
which promised eventual success.

The shells from the guns started on their course with characteristic
minute-long shrieks. Watches w