Читать книгу Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in France and Belgium. Or, Saving the Fortunes of the Trouvilles онлайн

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The shell fire from the German batteries was so terrific that Belgian soldiers and French marines were continually being blown out of their dugouts and sent scattering to cover. The distant town was invisible except for flames and smoke clouds rising above it.

The tide of battle streamed nearer to the wood where the boys had taken shelter. From their high point of vantage they were soon forced to witness one of the most horrible sights imaginable.

A heavy howitzer shell fell and burst in the midst of a Belgian battery, which was making its way to the front, causing awful destruction—mangled men and horses going down in heaps.

Henri was in a chill of horror, and Billy so shaken that it was with difficulty that they resisted a wild desire to jump into space—anything to shut out the appalling picture.

The next instant they were staring down upon a hand-to-hand conflict in the woods, within two hundred yards of the tree in which they were perched. British and Germans were engaged in a bayonet duel, in which the former force triumphed, leaving the ground literally covered with German wounded and dead, hardly a man in gray escaping the massacre.