"Take your glasses."
But before they could adjust the binoculars, the Commandant placed a new
paper on top of the map. It was an enormous and somewhat hazy photograph
upon whose plan appeared a fan of red lines like the other one.
"Our aviators," explained the gunner courteously, "have taken this
morning some views of the enemy's positions. This is an enlargement from
our photographic laboratory. . . . According to this information, there
are two German regiments encamped in that wood."
Don Marcelo saw on the print the spot of woods, and within it white
lines which represented roads, and groups of little squares which were
blocks of houses in a village. He believed he must be in an aeroplane
contemplating the earth from a height of three thousand feet. Then he
raised the glasses to his eyes, following the direction of one of the
red lines, and saw enlarged in the circle of the glass a black bar,
somewhat like a heavy line of ink--the grove, the refuge of the foe.
"Whenever you say, Senator Lacour, we will begin," said the Commandant,
reaching the topmost notch of his courtesy. "Are you ready?"
Desnoyers smiled slightly. For what was his illustrious friend to
make himself ready? What difference could it possibly make to a mere
spectator, much interested in the novelty of the show? . . .
There sounded behind them numberless bells, gongs that called and gongs
that answered.
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