We passed heaped-up hutments at the foot of the circular chalky cliff that we could see dimly drawn among the black circles of space.

The sound of shots drew near and multiplied on all sides; the vibration of artillery fire outspread under our feet and over our heads.
I found myself suddenly in front of a narrow and muddy ravine into which the others were plunging one by one.
"It's the trench," whispered the man who was following me; "you can see its beginning, but you never see its blinking end.

Anyway, on you go!" We followed the trench along for three hours.

For three hours we continued to immerse ourselves in distance and solitude, to immure ourselves in night, scraping its walls with our loads, and sometimes violently pulled up, where the defile shrunk into strangulation by the sudden wedging of our pouches.

It seemed as if the earth tried continually to clasp and choke us, that sometimes it roughly struck us.
Above the unknown plains in which we were hiding, space was shot-riddled.