Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1914-10-10

lava, the Gray soldiery was erupting
from the range; in columns, still under
the control of officers, keeping to the
defiles; IN swarms and patches, under
the control of nothing but their own
emotions Mostly they were hugging
cover, from instinct if not from direc-
ton, but some relied on straight lines
of flight and speed of foot for escape.
Coursing aeroplanes were playing
new part. Their wireless was inform
ing the Brown gunners where the
masses were thickest. This way and
that the Brown artillery fire drove re-
treating bodies, prodding them in the
back with the fearful shepherdry OF
their shells. Officers swords flashed
in the faces of the boilers or in hold
ing rear-guards to their work. Officers
and orderlies were galloping h1ther
and thither with messages, in want OF
wires. Commanders had been told to
hold, but how and where to hold? They
saw neighboring regiments and brl-
gades going and they had to go. The
machine, the complicated modern war
machine, was broken; the machine,
with it's nerves of intelligence cut be-
came a thing of disconnected parts,
each part working out its own saliva
ton. Authority ceased to be that Of
the bureau and army lists. 1t was that
of units racked by hardship, acting on
the hours demand.
Gorged was the pass road, over
flowing with the struggling tumult OF
men and vehicles. Self-preservation
breaking the bonds of discipline was
in the ascendant, and it sought the
highway, even as water keeps to the
river bed. Like specks on the labor
ing tide was the white of bandages. An
ambulance trying to cut out to one
side was overturned. The frantic
chauffeur and hospital-corps orderly
were working to eXtricate the wound
ed from their painful position. A gun
was overturned against the ambulance.
A melee of horses and men was form
ing at the foot of the garden gate in
front of the narrowing bounds of the
road into the town, as stream banks
up before a jam of driftwood. The
struggle for right of way became in
creasingly wild; the dam of men,
horses, and wagons grew. A Brown
dirigible vas descending toward the
great target; but on closer view it's
commander forbore, the humane i'm
pulse outweighing the desire for retri-
button for colleagues in camp and
mess who had gone down in a holo-
caust in the aerial battles of the night
Under the awful spell of the pano-
rama, she did not see Westerling, who
had stopped only a few feet distant
with his aide and his valet, nor did he
notice her as the tumult glazed his
eyes. He was as an artist who locks
on the ribbons of the canvas of his
painting, or the sculptor on the frag-
ments of his statue. Worse still, with
no faith to give him fortitude except
the materialistic, he saw the altar Of
his god of military efficiency in ruins.
He who had not allowed the word re-
treat to enter his lexicon now saw a
rout. He had laughed at reserve
armies in last nights feverish defiance,
at Turcas's advocacy of slower and
surer method of attack. In those hours
of shifting at wall with his fists and
forehead, in denial of all the truth so
clear to average military logic, if he
had only even few conventional d.
rections all this disorder would have
been avoided His army could have
fallen back in orderly fashion to their
own range. The machine out of order,
he had attempted no repair; he had al
lowed it to thrash itself to pieces.
The artillery's maceration of the
human jam suddenly ceased; perhaps
because the gunners had seen the Red
Cross flag which a doctor had the
presence of mind to- wave. Westerling
turned from a sight worse to him than
the killiMg-that Of the flowing retreat
along the road pressing frantically
over the dead and wounded in growing
disorder for the cover of the town.
Near by were Bellini, the chief of in
telligence, and subaltern who had
arrived only minute before. The sub
altern was dust-covered. He seemed
to have come in from hard ride. Both
were watching Marta, as If waiting for
her to speak. She met Westerling's
look steadily, her eyes dark and still
and in his the reflection of the vague
realization of more than he had
guessed in her relations with him.
WELL" she breathed to Westerling,
1.-THE war goes on"
That's it! That's the voice!" ex-
claimed the subaltern in an explosion
of recognition.
A short, sharp laugh Of irony broke
from Bellini; the laugh of one whose
suspicious are confirmed in the mix
ture Of the sublime and the ridiculous.
Marta looked around at the Interrupt
ton, alert, on guard.
you seem amused" she remarked
curiously.
mo, but you must have been," re-
piled Bellini hoarsely. early this
morning, not far from the castle, this
young officer found in the crater made
by ten-inch shell a wire that ran in
a conduit underground. The wire was
IN 70 ~ %,~-ol IT,