“Good generalship is easy if you know what the enemy is going to do,” Lanstron remarked to a member of the staff council who said something complimentary to him.  Compliments from subordinates to superiors had not received Partow’s favor and, therefore, not Lanstron’s.  Eccentric old Partow had once disparaged the Napoleonic idea as a fetich which had nothing to do with modern military efficiency, and he had added that if Napoleon were alive to-day nobody would be so prompt to see it as Napoleon himself.  If he did not, and tried to incarnate the idea of the time by making himself the supreme genius of war, he would fail, because ability was too nearly universal and the age too big for another Colossus.

Through Marta’s information every detail of Westerling’s plan outlined itself to the trained minds of the Brown staff.  Amazement at their dependence on an underground wire and a woman’s word for shaping vast affairs was not reflected in any scepticism or hesitation as to the method of meeting the assault.

The fortifications that had sheltered the Brown infantry, including Stransky’s men of the 53d, would be the object of the artillery fire which was to support the Gray charge.  Well Lanstron knew that no fortifications could withstand the gusts of shells to be concentrated on such a small target.  The defenders could not see to fire for the dust.  Their rifles would be knocked out of their hands by the concussions.  They must be crushed or imprisoned by the destruction of the very walls that had been their protection.  So they were withdrawn to other redoubts in the rear, where a line of automatics placed under their rifles were in pointblank range of their old position which the Grays’ shells would tear to pieces.

Back of them was a brown carpet of waiting soldiery of as close a pile as Westerling’s carpet of gray.  The rain-drenched Brown engineers dug as fast as the enemy’s.  Lanstron massed artillery against massed artillery.  For every Gray gun he had more than one Brown gun.  The Grays might excel by ratio of five to three in human avoirdupois, but a willing Brown government had been generous with funds.  Money will buy guns and skill will man them.  Battery back of battery in literal tiers, small calibres in front and heavy calibres in the rear, with ranges fixed to given points—­more guns than ever fired on a single position before—­were to pour their exploding projectiles not into redoubts but into the human wedge.

In the Browns’ headquarters, as in the Grays’, telegraph instruments were silent after the preparations were over.  Here, also, officers walked about restlessly, glancing at their watches.  They, too, were glad that the mist continued.  It meant no wind.  When the telegraph did speak it was with another message from some aerostatic officer, saying, “Still favorable,” which was taken at once to Lanstron, who was with the staff chiefs around the big table.  They nodded at the news and smiled to one another; and some who had been pacing sat down and others rose to begin pacing afresh.