In a quarter of an hour the great batteries limbered up again, and once more the French army went forward, the troops to lie down and wait again, while the artillery worked with ferocious energy.  It was yet a battle of big guns, at least in the center.  The armies were not near enough to each other for rifles; in truth not near enough yet to be seen.  John, even with his glasses, could only discern the gray line advancing, he could make little of its form or order or of what it was trying to do.

But a light wind was now bringing smoke from one flank where the battle was far heavier than in the center, and the concussion of the artillery at that point became so frightful that the air seemed to come in waves of the utmost violence and to beat upon the drum of the ear with the force of a hammer.  Owing to the wind John could not hear the battle on the other flank so well, but he believed that it was being fought there with equal fury and determination.

He was watching with such intentness that he did not hear the sweep of an aeroplane behind him, but he did see Lannes run to General Vaugirard’s car and give him a note.

While the general read and pondered, Lannes turned toward the wheel on which John sat.  Although he tried to preserve calm, John knew that he was tremendously excited.  He had taken off his heavy glasses and his wonderful gray eyes were flashing.  It was obvious to his friend, who now knew him so well, that he was moved by some tremendous emotion.

John rode up by the side of Lannes and said: 

“What have you seen, Philip?  You can tell a little at least, can’t you?”

“More than a little!  A lot!  The Arrow and I have looked over a great area, John!  Miles and miles and yet more miles! and wherever we went we gazed down upon armies locked in battle, and beyond that were other armies locked in battle, too!  The nations meet in wrath!  You can’t see it here, nor from anywhere on the earth!  It’s only in the air high overhead that one can get even a partial view of its immensity!  The English army is off there on the flank, a full thirty miles away, and you’re not likely to see it today!”

He would have said more, but General Vaugirard beckoned to him, gave him a note which he had written hastily, and in a few more minutes Lannes was flitting like a swallow through the heavens.  Then General Vaugirard’s car moved forward and brigade after brigade of the French army resumed its advance also.

John felt that the great German machine had been met by a French machine as great.  Perhaps the master mind that thrills through an organism of steel no less than one of human flesh was on the French side.  He did not know.  The invisible hand thrusting forward the French armies was still invisible to him.  Yet he felt with the certainty of conviction that the eye and the brain of one man were achieving a marvel.  In some mysterious manner the French defense had become an offense.  The Republican troops were now attacking and the Imperial troops were seeking to hold fast.