Greenmantle - John Buchan

the south, after a dip there was a ridge which shut the view. East lay another fork
of the stream, the chief fork I guessed, and it was evidently followed by the main
road to the pass, for I saw it crowded with transport. The two roads seemed to
converge somewhere farther south of my sight.
I guessed we could not be very far from the front, for the noise of guns
sounded very near, both the sharp crack of the field-pieces, and the deeper boom
of the howitzers. More, I could hear the chatter of the machine-guns, a magpie
note among the baying of hounds. I even saw the bursting of Russian shells,
evidently trying to reach the main road. One big fellow—an eight-inch—landed
not ten yards from a convoy to the east of us, and another in the hollow through
which we had come. These were clearly ranging shots, and I wondered if the
Russians had observation-posts on the heights to mark them. If so, they might
soon try a curtain, and we should be very near its edge. It would be an odd irony
if we were the target of friendly shells.
'By the Lord Harry,' I heard Sandy say, 'if we had a brace of machine-guns we
could hold this place against a division.'
'What price shells?' I asked. 'If they get a gun up they can blow us to atoms in
ten minutes.'
'Please God the Russians keep them too busy for that,' was his answer.
With anxious eyes I watched our enemies on the road. They seemed to have
grown in numbers. They were signalling, too, for a white flag fluttered. Then the
mist rolled down on us again, and our prospect was limited to ten yards of
vapour.
'Steady,' I cried; 'they may try to rush us at any moment. Every man keep his
eye on the edge of the fog, and shoot at the first sign.'
For nearly half an hour by my watch we waited in that queer white world, our
eyes smarting with the strain of peering. The sound of the guns seemed to be
hushed, and everything grown deathly quiet. Blenkiron's squeal, as he knocked
his wounded leg against a rock, made every man start.
Then out of the mist there came a voice.