THE grim gray wave of destruction from the sand dunes had rolled into battleline and spread out over the green clothed hills and valleys of the Island—swiftly, remorselessly, with an uncanny precision that was marvelous.

The scouts were soaring in the clear blue skies with keen eyes searching for the position of our guns.

As they found them, a puff of black smoke streamed downward and the distant officer, perched high on his movable observation tower, took the range and called it mechanically to the gunners of his battery.

Our rifles cracked in vain. The birdmen laughed and paid no attention. We had no high-powered, high-angle guns that could touch them. Over every section of our lines the huge vultures hung in the air and circled.

The giant guns miles away beyond the distant hills toward Southampton began to roar. Their first shells fell short from five to six hundred yards.

Our boys gazed over their earthworks and watched the geysers of earth and stone and smoke leap into the heavens and sink back in dull crashes. The wind brought in the acid fumes of the poisonous gases.

They stood in silence, clutching their rifles and waiting for the word to fire.

The vultures circled again and dropped more smoke balls. The invisible gunners at their places caught the singsong call from the tower, touched a wheel and raised the noses of their gray monsters the slightest bit.

Again the earth trembled. The air vibrated with the rush of projectiles like the singing of telegraph wires far above the heads of the listening men.

They struck within a hundred yards of where Vassar sat with the field telephone at his ear awaiting General Hood’s orders—a giant shell landed squarely in our trenches, tore a cavern in the earth sixteen feet deep, hurling our mangled men in every direction. Within a radius of a hundred feet no living thing could be seen when the smoke and dust had cleared. Those who had not been killed by stone and flying fragments of iron had been smothered to death where they stood by the deadly fumes.

Our guns answered now in deep thunder peals that shook the trenches.

For two hours without a pause the artillery of both armies sent their mighty chorus crashing into the heavens, their missiles of death whistling through the skies.

The fire of the enemy was incredibly accurate. Their shells struck our trenches with unerring certainty—and where one struck there was nothing left but an ugly crater in the ground. They simply annihilated every object in their track and left a mass of blackened dust and pulp.

Gun after gun of our batteries were silenced.

The vultures were still soaring aloft calling the range of each concealed battery as the fight revealed its place.

The battle had opened at dawn. By ten o’clock fifty pieces of our artillery had been reduced to junk and one-third of our trenches pulverized into shapeless masses of dust, broken stone and gaping caverns.

Apparently our heavy gun fire had made no impression on the enemy. Their long range pieces were hurling death with a steady clock-like regularity that was appalling. Our army was being ground to dust without a chance to strike their hidden foe. We had never possessed an aviation corps of any serviceable strength. The year before the nucleus of one had been authorized by Congress. This little group of efficient men had followed the fleet into the Pacific and the remaining dozen had been left to die in our tragic meeting with the armada.

General Hood possessed but two aeroplanes. It was madness to send them up against two hundred of the enemy. By an accident to his machinery a taube had fallen within our lines. The men had been captured, their uniforms taken, and delivered to General Hood. The machinery of the hostile aeroplane was promptly repaired, our blond sky pilot forced himself into the greenish-gray suit and stood by waiting for the chance to rise in a cloud of smoke and take his chance among the enemy as a spy.

At noon a wave of fog slowly crept in from sea and the guns had died away. As the mist rolled over the battlefield Hood stood beside the courier of the skies.

“Up with you now, boy, in this fog bank. Mix with the enemy and take your chances. Stay until the firing is resumed and give me the position of their guns. I must know whether we have reached them with our shells.”

The birdman saluted and swung the taube into the clouds. He circled toward the sea and disappeared in the mists.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon before he landed far in the rear of our lines and made his way by automobile to headquarters.

Hood sprang from his desk and rushed to meet him.

“Well?”

“Got over their lines all right, sir,” the scout answered. “Watched our shells for an hour. Not one of them fell closer than half a mile short of their batteries.”

The General pressed his hand in silence.

“All right. It’s as I thought. You’re a brave boy, my son. You’re marked for promotion for this day’s work.”

There was nothing to be done but move his lines five miles back to the second trenches. They were being pounded into pulp without a chance to strike back.

We had exhausted half our stock of shells without scoring a hit. Our losses in men and guns had been frightful. The tragic feature of the day was the loss of trained artillerymen whose places could not be filled. It takes three years to train the man behind the gun.

By daylight the retreat of five miles had been effected. The ground in front was more favorable here for long range work. From captive balloons the position of the batteries could be located. We hoped that some of them could be reached and put out of action. If so, we would give them a taste of cold steel.

All night the great guns growled in the distance while our shattered lines retreated and reformed in the second intrenchments.

At dawn the vultures signalled the retreat and the green-gray wave of Death rolled forward with incredible swiftness.

By noon their greatest guns, each drawn by fifty magnificent horses, had been brought up and were sweeping into position along the low hills that would form their new battleline.

Our commander made up his mind to pot at least one of those guns. He planted a battery of heavy artillery to sweep the road that curved gracefully over these hills. A clump of trees concealed its presence from the circling scouts.

The moment the huge siege gun swept into view—its fifty horses plunging forward with steady leaps, their sides a lather of white foam—our battery roared a salvo and four shells sang in chorus. The gunners lifted their glasses and watched. Every shell struck within dead range of the long line of plunging horses. A cloud of smoke and dust rose high on the crest of the hill and when it lifted the tangled mass of torn and mangled horses and men blocked the way. A second salvo landed squarely in the wreck and blew the tangled mass into fragments—the glasses could no longer find a moving object.

The vultures circled above the hidden battery, their signals flashed and then from five different points behind the hills the shells began to shriek. In thirty minutes they were silenced and torn to bits. But two men were left alive to reach headquarters with the brave story.

The second battle began in earnest at three o’clock in the afternoon. The pitiful story was repeated. With remorseless accuracy their guns ............