Those whose knees grew weak beneath them were upborne and carried forward by the press of their comrades.

The French gunners, too, were making prodigious efforts but with cannon of such long range neither side could see what its batteries were accomplishing.

John was sure, though, that the great French artillery must be giving as good as it received.
He was conscious that General Vaugirard was still going forward along the long white road, sweeping his glasses from left to right and from right to left in a continuous semi-circle, apparently undisturbed, apparently now without human emotion.

He was no figure of romance, but he was a man, cool and powerful, ready to die with all his men, if death for them was needed.
Still the invisible hand swept them on, the hand that a million men in action could not see, but which every one of the million, in his own way, felt.

The crash of the guns on both sides had become fused together into one roar, so steady and continued so long that the sound seemed almost normal.