There was a moment’s pause, from over the woods behind us came a “Whr-r-rong !” and out over the sunny fields a shell went milling away to send back a faint report and show a puff of cotton above the trenches to the right.  It was a bit short—­the next fell better.  Another nod, another “Whr-r-row?/” from somewhere behind us, and this time the cottony puff was just short of the clump of trees where the Russians had concealed their battery.  I picked up the spot through the glass and—­ one might have known !—­there was One of those eternal peasants calmly swinging his scythe about fifty yards short of the spot where the shrapnel had exploded.  I could see him straighten up, glance at it, then go on with his mowing again.

There was a certain elegance, a fine spaciousness about these artillery-men and their work which made one more content with war again.  No huddling in muddy trenches here, waiting to be smashed by jagged chunks of iron—­everything clean, aloof, scientific, exact, a matter of fine wires crossing on a periscope lens, of elevation, wind pressure, and so on, and everything in the wide outdoors, and done, so to say, with a magnificent gesture.

People drive high-power motor-cars and ride strong horses because of the sense of power it gives them—­how about standing on a hill, looking over miles of splendid country to where a huddle of ants and hobby-horse specks—­say a battalion or two—­are just crawling around a hill or jammed on a narrow bridge, and then to scatter them, herd them, chase them from one horizon to another with a mere, “Mr. Jones, you may fire now,” and a wave of the hand!

The division commander took us back a mile or so to his headquarters for lunch, the Russians slowly waking up and sending a few perfunctory shells after us as we went over the hill, and here was another genial party, with three “Hochs” for the guests at the end.  Even out here in empty Galicia the soldiers got their beer.  “We’re not quite so temperate as the Russians,” the general smiled.  “A little alcohol—­not too much—­does ’em good.”

A young lieutenant who sat next me regaled me with his impression of things in general.  The Russians had squandered ammunition, he said, in the early days of the war—­they would fire twenty rounds or so at a single cavalryman or anything that showed itself.  They were short now, but a supply would come evidently every now and then, for they would blaze away for a day or so, then there would be a lull again.  They were short on officers, too, but not so much as you might think, because they kept their officers well back of the line, generally.  Their artillery was better than the infantry, as a rule; the latter shot carelessly and generally too high.