"What's that?" cried a boatman, and "Shut up, you fool!" said a man
near me to a yelping dog.  Then the sound came again, this time from
the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud--the sound of a gun.

The fighting was beginning.  Almost immediately unseen batteries
across the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up
the chorus, firing heavily one after the other.  A woman screamed.
Everyone stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet
invisible to us.  Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows
feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows
motionless in the warm sunlight.