A few star-shells were softly whitening some sections of the night, revealing the excavations' wet entrails and conjuring up a file of heavy shadows, borne down by lofty burdens, tramping in a black and black-bunged impasse, and jolting against the eddies.

When great guns were discharged all the vault of heaven was lighted and lifted and then fell darkly back.
"Look out! The open crossing!" A wall of earth rose in tiers before us.

There was no outlet.

The trench came to a sudden end--to be resumed farther on, it seemed.
"Why ?" I asked, mechanically.
They explained to me: "It's like that." And they added, "You stoop down and get a move on." The men climbed the soft steps with bent heads, made their rush one by one and ran hard into the belt whose only remaining defense was the dark.

The thunder of shrapnel that shattered and dazzled the air here and there showed me too frightfully how fragile we all were.