Its cannon was a line of flaming volcanoes, its cavalry charged again and again into the face of death, and its infantry perished in masses, but the stern old general spared nothing.

Passing up and down the lines, listening at the telephone and receiving the reports of air scouts and land scouts, he always hurled in fresh troops at the critical points and Fritz and Karl and Wilhelm and August, sober and honest men, went forward willingly, sometimes singing and sometimes in silence, to die for a false and outworn system.
John as a prisoner had a better view than he would have had if with the French army.

In a country open now he could see a full mile to right and left, where the German hosts marched again and again to attack, and while the French troops were too far away for his eyes he beheld the continuous flare of their fire, like a broad red ribbon across the whole western horizon.
The passing of time was nothing to him.

He forgot all about it in his absorption.

But the sun climbed on, afternoon came, and still the battle at this point raged, the French unable to drive the Germans farther and the Germans unable to stop the French attacks.