somehow the loose wavy ranks are kept well in hand, and the main movement proceeds like machinery.  “I feel a bit queer,” says Bill Williams to a veteran friend.  “Never mind—­’taint every one durst say that,” says the friend.  “Whoo-o-sh!” a muffled thump, and the veteran falls forward, dropping his rifle.  He struggles up on hands and knees, but a rush of blood chokes him, and he drops with a groan.  He will lie there for a long time before his burning throat is moistened by a cup of water, and he knows only too well that the surgeon will merely shake his head when he sees him.  The brigade still advances; gradually the sputtering crackle in their front grows into a low steady roar; a stream of lead whistles in the air, and the long lurid line of flame glows with the sustained glare of a fire among furze.  Men fall at every yard, but the hoarse murmur of the dogged advance never ceases.  At last the time comes for the rush.  The ranks are trimmed up by imperceptible degrees; the men set their teeth, and a strange eager look comes over many a face.  The eyes of the youngsters stare glassily; they can see the wood from which the enemy must be dislodged at any price, but they can form no definite ideas; they merely grip their rifles and go on mechanically.  The word is given—­the dark lines dash forward; the firing from the wood breaks out in a crash of fury—­there is a long harsh rattle, then a chance crack like a thunder-clap, and then a whirring like the spinning of some demoniac mill.  Curses ring out amid a low sound of hard breathing; the ranks are gapped here and there as a man wriggles away like a wounded rabbit, or another bounds upward with a frantic ejaculation.  Then comes the fighting at close quarters.  Perhaps kind women who are misled by the newspaper-writer’s brisk babblement may like to know what that means, so I give the words of the best eyewitness that ever gazed on warfare.  He took down his notes by the light of burning wood, and he had no time to think of grammar.  All his words were written like mere convulsive cries, but their main effect is too vivid to be altered.  Notice that he rarely concludes a sentence, for he wanted to save time, and the bullets were cutting up the ground and the trees all round him.  “Patches of the wood take fire, and several of the wounded, unable to move, are consumed.  Quite large spaces are swept over, burning the dead also; some of the men have their hair and beards singed, some burns on their faces and hands, others holes burnt in their clothing.  The flashes of fire from the cannon, the quick glaring flames and smoke, and the immense roar—­the musketry so general; the light nearly bright enough for each side to see the other; the crashing, tramping of men—­the yelling—­close quarters—­hand-to-hand conflicts.  Each side stands up to it, brave, determined as demons; and still the wood’s on fire—­still many are not only scorched—­too many, unable to move, are burned to death.  Who knows the conflict,