It was all a matter of chance. Chance was the
one thing that would protect a man. So the thing to do was to go ahead
as if not noticing anything. If there was only one man in the company
who did not seem to care, the others would be put to shame and would
mutually control each other, and then everything was won. He could tell
by his own experience how the feeling of being watched on all sides
upheld him. Had he been by himself, he might have thrown himself on the
ground and tried to hide behind a stone no matter how small.
"Nothing but a spent shot! Forward, boys!" he cried, the thought of
being a support to his men almost making him cheerful. But the words
were not out of his mouth when other shots whizzed through the air. In
spite of himself, his body twitched backward and his head sank lower
between his shoulders. That made him stiffen his muscles and grind his
teeth in rage. It was not the violence with which the scream flew toward
him that made him twitch. It was the strange precision with which the
circle of the thing's flight (exactly like a diagram at a lecture on
artillery) curved in front of him. It was this unnatural feeling of
perceiving a sound more with the eye than with the ear that made the
will powerless.
Something had to be done to create the illusion of not being wholly
defenseless.
"Forward, run!" he shouted at the top of his voice, holding his hands to
his mouth to make a megaphone.
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