[Sidenote: My comrades are hidden in the fog.]
"Yes, sir." I tried to be as casual, but could not disguise the
excitement that filled me. "Shall--the guns--" and I stopped, startled
at the tone of my own voice. It sounded as if it were coming from some
person a dozen feet away. And as I stood there a sense of elation, that
was possibly partly fear, swept over me. I looked about me, toward the
direction of the French officer who had spoken, toward the fellows of my
battery who had accompanied me up to the Front. I say toward their
direction, for I could not see my comrades--the fog that had come over
the land at sunset was too heavy to allow one to see an arm's length.
The officer snickered.
"Is this all that there is to it? Are we really on the firing line?" I
asked aloud. "Why, it's as quiet here as the Michigan woods!"
The officer laughed again.
"At this minute, yes," he said; then, "Wait here, I will be back
directly, and no noise!"
[Sidenote: The firing line seems a lonely place.]
He went off through the fog, and I have never experienced such a
feeling of loneliness as swept over me at that minute--loneliness, and I
really believe disappointment,--for I had imagined the firing line to be
a place of constant terror.
"Gee, this is what we've been training for all these months!" I heard
one of the fellows say. "Well, all I've got to say is it won't be so
quiet over on the Boches' land when we get started," and they all
laughed.
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