The cartridges reminded one of corn-
cobs jumping out of a corn-sheller, and it was interesting when the
Bolts were shot back to see a hundred of them pop up into the air at
the same time, flashing in the sun as though they were glad to have
done their work and to get out again. They rolled by the dozens
underfoot, and twinkled in the grass, and when one shifted his
position in the narrow trench, or stretched his cramped legs, they
tinkled musically. It was like wading in a gutter filled with
thimbles.
Then there began a concert which came from just overhead - a concert
of jarring sounds and little whispers. The "shrieking shrapnel," of
which one reads in the description of every battle, did not seem so
much like a shriek as it did like the jarring sound of telegraph
wires when some one strikes the pole from which they hang, and when
they came very close the noise was like the rushing sound that rises
between two railroad trains when they pass each other in opposite
directions and at great speed. After a few hours we learned by
observation that when a shell sang overhead it had already struck
somewhere else, which was comforting, and which was explained, of
course, by the fact that the speed of the shell is so much greater
than the rate at which sound travels. The bullets were much more
disturbing; they seemed to be less open in their warfare, and to
steal up and sneak by, leaving no sign, and only to whisper as they
passed.
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