Then some shells landed in first-line trenches nearby.
"Take shelter!" shouted Captain Ribaut.

"Now! At once!" French soldiers were scurrying to dug-out shelters.

Ribaut led the officer party to a dugout reached by eight descending steps cut in the earth.

The apartment in which they found themselves led out some fifteen feet under the barbed wire defenses.
"How long is this likely to last ?" demanded Major Wells, eyeing the Frenchman keenly by the light of the one slim candle that burned in the dug-out.
"Perhaps fifteen minutes; maybe until after daylight," Ribaut replied, with a shrug.
"What is the object ?" "Who can say?
But a barrage fire is being laid down between our first and second lines.

That means that no reinforcements can reach us from the support trenches.