Smoke clouds went slowly and insolently across the fields like observant phantoms.

The din became crescendo, like the roar of an oncoming train.
A brigade ahead of them and on the right went into action with a rending roar.

It was as if it had exploded.

And thereafter it lay stretched in the distance behind a long gray wall, that one was obliged to look twice at to make sure that it was smoke.
The youth, forgetting his neat plan of getting killed, gazed spell bound.

His eyes grew wide and busy with the action of the scene.