One burst in the road about three hundred yards in front of them, and tore a hole so deep that they were compelled to drive around it.
"The French are good with the guns," said Scheller, regarding the excavation meditatively, "but of course it was by mere chance that the shell struck in the road." John felt a light and momentary chill.

It would certainly be the irony of fate if on his great quest he were smitten down by a missile from his own army.

But no others struck near them, although the intermittent battle of artillery in the hills continued.
Sergeant Scheller paid no attention to the distant cannon fire, to which he had grown so used long since that he regarded it as one of the ordinary accompaniments of life, like the blowing of the wind.

He was in a good humor and he talked agreeably much about battle and march, although he betrayed no military secrets, chiefly because he had none to betray.
"I march here and I march there," he said, "I and my men shoot at a certain point, and from a certain point we're shot at.

That's all I know." "And that, I take it, is the cathedral in Metz," said John, pointing toward the top of a lofty spire showing against the blue.
"So it is, Castel, and here you'll have to show your passport again.
We're approaching the fortifications.