“We passed on to the center, going slightly to the rear for horses.  As we arrived at the right wing we witnessed the last of a Russian infantry advance at that end.  The wave of Russians had swept nearly to the German trenches, situated between two sections of field artillery, and there had been repulsed.  Russians were smeared across in front of these pits, dead, dying, or wounded—­cut down by the terrible spray of German machine guns.

“I got up to the trenches as the German fire slackened because of the lack of targets.  The Russians had gone back.  Strewn in the trenches were countless empty shells, the bullets of which had, as it looked to inexpert eyes, slain thousands.  As a matter of fact, there were hundreds of dead in the field ahead.

GUN BARRELS SIZZLING HOT

“German infantrymen spat on their rapid firers as we reached the trench and delightedly called our attention to the sizzle that told how hot the barrels were from the firing.

“The men stretched their cramped limbs, helped a few wounded to the rear, and waited for breakfast.  It was not long forthcoming.  Small lines of men struggling along tinder steaming buckets came hurrying up to the accompaniment of cheers and shouts.  They bore soup that the men in the trenches gulped down ravenously.  Meanwhile men with the white brassard and the red Geneva cross were busy out in the open, lending succor to the Russian wounded.  The battle seemed to have come to a sudden halt.

“But even as I was getting soup, the artillery fusillade broke forth again.  From 9 o’clock to noon the Russians hurled their heavy shells at the German trenches and the German guns.  The German batteries replied slowly.

“There was mighty little fuss and feathers about this business of dealing death from guns.  The crews at each piece laughed among themselves, but there were none of the picturesque shouts of command, the indiscriminate blowing of bugles, and the flashy waving of battle flags that the word battle usually conjures up.  It was merely a deadly business of killing.

“Over to the right, a scant 300 yards away, the Russians had apparently succeeded in getting the range.  As I watched through the glasses I saw shrapnel burst over the battery there and watched a noncommissioned soldier fall with three of his comrades.  I was told that one had been killed and three wounded.  The Red Cross crew came up and bore away the four—­the dead and the live—­and before they were gone the gun was speaking away with four fresh men working it.

“But the shrapnel kept bursting away over it and soon an orderly came riding furiously back on his horse, saluted the officers with me, and shouted as he hurried back to the artillery reserve:  ’Six inch shells to the front; more ammunition.’

“I went back to see the wounded, but the surgeon wouldn’t let me.  I expressed to him my wonder at the few wounded.  I had seen only a few in the trenches, and no German dead until I saw the artilleryman killed.  He explained that the losses on the German side were light because the trenches were well constructed and because there had been no hand-to-hand, bayonet to bayonet fighting.