about two o'clock in the morning
McGee started to make protest , thought better of it , and biting his lips savagely left the group around the board and went to his quarters . Of all the good men in the squadron , why should that traitorous scoundrel be included and other loyal deserving pilots be left behind ? Someone was being pig-headed indeed ! Along about two o'clock in the morning the eager pilots , tossing on their beds in a sleeplessness induced by the promise of the coming of dawn , were more fully awakened by the deep and sullen thundering of thousands of big guns hammering at the lines . It was no fitful , momentary outburst ; it was the constant earth-shaking roar that presages a drive . To the north and east the sky flickered with the light coming from thousands of cannon mouths . It was like the coming of a summer storm when the thunder god growls his wrath and lightning plays constantly over the giant thunderheads .