The battery on our left was
very near to us and we could see the sharp flash of its flame behind
the trees. The noise that it made was terrific, a sharp, angry, clumsy
noise, as though some huge giant clad in mail armour was flinging his
body, in a violent rage, against an iron door that echoed through an
empty house--my same iron door that I had heard all night. The rage of
the giant spread beyond his immediate little circle of trees and one
wondered at the men in the trenches because they were indifferent to
his temper.
The noise of the more distant batteries was still, as it had been
before, like the clanging of many iron doors very mild and gentle
against the clamour of our own enraged fury. The Austrian reply seemed
like the sleepy echo of this confusion, so sleepy and pleasant that
one felt almost friendly to the enemy.
Our own battery was inconsistent in his raging. Had he only chosen to
fling himself at his door every three minutes, say, or even every
minute, we could have prepared ourselves, but he was moved by nothing,
apparently, but his own irrational impulse.
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