the guns wagging from side to side
as the long line turned out of the road, and the drivers using their
whips as the leading horses scrambled at the hill. The halted Twelfth
lifted its voice and spoke amiably, but with point, to the battery.

"Go on, Guns! We'll take care of you. Don't be afraid. Give it to them!"
The teams--lead, swing and wheel--struggled and slipped over the steep
and uneven ground; and the gunners, as they clung to their springless
positions, wore their usual and natural airs of unhappiness. They made
no reply to the infantry. Once upon the top of the hill, however, these
guns were unlimbered in a flash, and directly the infantry could hear
the loud voice of an officer drawling out the time for fuses. A moment
later the first 3.2 bellowed out, and there could be heard the swish and
the snarl of a fleeting shell.

Colonel Sponge and a number of officers climbed to the battery's
position; but the men of the regiment sat in the shelter of the hill,
like so many blindfolded people, and wondered what they would have been
able to see if they had been officers. Sometimes the shells of the enemy
came sweeping over the top of the hill, and burst in great brown
explosions in the fields to the rear. The men looked after them and
laughed. To the rear could be seen also the mountain battery coming at a
comic trot, with every man obviously in a deep rage with every mule. If
a man can put in long service with a mule battery and come out of it
with an amiable disposition, he should be presented with a medal
weighing many ounces. After the mule battery came a long black winding
thing, which was three regiments of Spitzbergen infantry; and at the
backs of them and to the right was an inky square, which was the
remaining Spitzbergen guns. General Richie and his staff clattered up
the hill. The blindfolded Twelfth sat still. The inky square suddenly
became a long racing line. The howitzers joined their little bark to the
thunder of the guns on the hill, and the three regiments of infantry
came on. The Twelfth sat still.

Of a sudden a bugle rang its warning, and the officers shouted. Some
used the old cry, "Attention! Kim up, the Kickers!"--and the Twelfth
knew that it had been told to go on. The majority of the men expected to
see great things as soon as they rounded the shoulder of the hill; but
there was nothing to be seen save a complicated plain and the grey
knolls occupied by the enemy. Many company commanders