The battle was interesting to watch, but not exciting.  The noise of the shells from field guns is exactly like that of a rocket going up.  When the shell is coming towards you, there is a sharper hiss in it, like a whip.  It gives you a second or two to get under cover and then crack-whizz as the shrapnel whizzes out.  The heavy shells from the monitors, etc., make a noise more like a landslide of pebbles down a beach, only blurred as if echoed.  Bobbety’s “silk dress swishing through the air” does his imagination credit, but is not quite accurate, nor does it express the spirit of the things quite!

About 3.30 we had orders to cross to the left bank.  As we passed over the bridge, we put up two duck, who had been swimming there peacefully with the shells flying over their heads every half minute for hours.  When we reached the left bank we marched as if to reinforce our right flank.  Presently the Brigadier made us line out into echelon of companies in line in single rank, so that from a distance we looked like a brigade, instead of three companies.  About 4 we came up to a howitzer battery and lay down about 200 yards from it, thus: 

[Illustration]

We had lain there about ten minutes when a hiss, crack, whizz, and shells began to arrive, invariably in pairs, about where I’ve put the 1 and 2.  We had a fine view.  The first notice we had of each shell was the sudden appearance of a white puff, about thirty feet above ground, then a spatter of dust about thirty yards to the right, then the hiss-crack-whizz.  They were ranging on the battery, but after a minute or two they spotted the ammunition column, and a pair of shells burst at 3, then a pair at 4.  So the column retreated in a hurry along the dotted arrow, and the shells following them began to catch us in enfilade.  So Foster made us rise and move to the left in file.  Just as we were up, a pair burst right over my platoon.  I can’t conceive why nobody was hit.  I noticed six bullets strike the ground in a semi-circle between me and the nearest man three paces away, and everyone else noticed the same kind of thing, but nobody was touched.  I don’t suppose the enemy saw us at all:  anyway, the next pair pitched 100 yards beyond us, following the mules, and wounded three men in C. Company:  and the next got two men of B.—­all flesh wounds and not severe.  They never touched the ammunition column.

We lay down in a convenient ditch, and only one more pair came our way, as the enemy was ranging back to the battery.  Of this pair, one hit the edge of the ditch and buried itself without exploding, and the other missed with its bullets, while the case bounced along and hit a sergeant on the backside, not even bruising it.

Just before 5 we got orders to advance in artillery formation.  My platoon led, and we followed a course shown by the dotted line.  We went through the battery and about 300 yards beyond, and then had orders to return to camp.  On this trip (which was mere window-dressing) no shell came nearer than fifty yards:  in fact our own battery made us jump much more.