The German trenches, for the most part, lay inside the encircling lines of batteries.

In shape they rather suggested a U turned upside down; yet it was hard to ascribe to them any real shape, since they zigzagged so crazily.

I could tell, though, there was sanity in this seeming madness, for nearly every trench was joined at an acute angle with its neighbor; so that a man, or a body of men, starting at the rear, out of danger, might move to the very front of the fighting zone and all the time be well sheltered.

So far as I could make out there were but few breaks in the sequence of communications.

One of these breaks was almost directly in front of me as I stood facing the south.
The batteries of the Allies and their infantry trenches, being so much farther away, were less plainly visible.