The German commander withdrew all his men from
the advanced trenches on between the ridge and the river, keeping,
however, strongly intrenched detachments of riflemen at all commanding
points with powerful artillery as their support.
Sunday night was a veritable pandemonium of destruction and tumult.
All night long, without cessation, the batteries of both sides,
knowing exactly their opponents' range, fired perpetually. All
night long searchlight bombs were thrown. All night long, golden
and red and yellow streams of flame or the sudden jagged flash
of an explosion lit up the black smoke of burning buildings and
fields in the valley, or showed the white puff-like low clouds of
the bursting shrapnel. Not for an instant did the roar diminish,
not for a second was the kindly veil of night left unrent by a
fissure of vengeful flame. Yet, all night long, as ceaselessly
as the great guns poured out their angry fury, so did men pour
out their indomitable will, and in that hell light of battle flame
engineers labored to construct bridges, small bodies of troops
moved forward to join their comrades in the trenches who had been
able to make a footing the day before, and all night long, those
ghastly yet merciful accompaniments of a battle field--the ambulance
corps--carried on their work of relief. The searchlights swept up
and down the valley, like great eyes that watched to give direction
to the venom of war.
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