They had no artillery, no
differentiation into this force or that; the only weapon on either side
was the little green metal carbine, whose secret manufacture and sudden
distribution in enormous quantities had been one of Ostrog's culminating
moves against the Council. Few had had any experience with this weapon,
many had never discharged one, many who carried it came unprovided with
ammunition; never was wilder firing in the history of warfare. It was a
battle of amateurs, a hideous experimental warfare, armed rioters
fighting armed rioters, armed rioters swept forward by the words and fury
of a song, by the tramping sympathy of their numbers, pouring in
countless myriads towards the smaller ways, the disabled lifts, the
galleries slippery with blood, the halls and passages choked with smoke,
beneath the flying stages, to learn there when retreat was hopeless the
ancient mysteries of warfare. And overhead save for a few sharpshooters
upon the roof spaces and for a few bands and threads of vapour that
multiplied and darkened towards the evening, the day was a clear
serenity. Ostrog it seems had no bombs at command and in all the earlier
phases of the battle the flying machines played no part. Not the smallest
cloud was there to break the empty brilliance of the sky. It seemed as
though it held itself vacant until the aeroplanes should come.
Ever and again there was news of these, drawing nearer, from this Spanish
town and then that, and presently from France.
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