He bent to his telephone and spoke briskly into it.

He used German, but, after a fashion, I made out what he said.

He was directing the attention of somebody to the activities of those red trousers.
I intended to see what would follow on this, but at this precise moment a sufficiently interesting occurrence came to pass at a place within much clearer eye range.

The gray grub-worms had shoved ahead until they were gray ants; and now all the ants concentrated into a swarm and, leaving the trenches, began to move in a slanting direction toward a patch of woods far over to our left.

Some of them, I think, got there, some of them did not.