They Were Clambering From The Bed Of The
Stream, Breaking Through The Bushes, And Forming Into A Long Line,
Which,
As soon as formed, was at once hidden at regular intervals by
flashes of flame that seemed to leap from
One gun-barrel to the next,
as you have seen a current of electricity run along a line of gas-
jets. In the dim twilight these flashes were much more blinding than
they had been in the glare of the sun, and the crash of the artillery
coming on top of the silence was the more fierce and terrible by the
contrast. The Turks were so close on us that the first trench could
do little to help itself, and the men huddled against it while their
comrades on the surrounding hills fought for them, their volleys
passing close above our heads, and meeting the rush of the Turkish
bullets on the way, so that there was now one continuous whistling
shriek, like the roar of the wind through the rigging of a ship in a
storm. If a man had raised his arm above his head his hand would
have been torn off. It had come up so suddenly that it was like two
dogs, each springing at the throat of the other, and in a greater
degree it had something of the sound of two wild animals struggling
for life. Volley answered volley as though with personal hate - one
crashing in upon the roll of the other, or beating it out of
recognition with the bursting roar of heavy cannon.
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