from the front.
There were barbed-wire entanglements everywhere, and every field was
honeycombed with trenches. One looked across the plain and saw
nothing. Then suddenly as we advanced great gashes cut across the
fields, and in these gashes, although not a head was seen, were men.
The firing was continuous. And now, going down a road, with a line of
poplar trees at the foot and the setting sun behind us throwing out
faint shadows far ahead, we saw the flash of water. It was very near.
It was the flooded river and the canal. Beyond, eight hundred yards or
less from where we stood, were the Germans. To one side the inundation
made a sort of bay.

It was along this part of the field that the Allies expected the
German Army to make its advance when the spring movement commenced.
And as nearly as can be learned from the cabled accounts that is where
the attack was made.

A captain from General d'Urbal's staff met us at the trenches, and
pointed out the strategical value of a certain place, the certainty of
a German advance, and the preparations that were made to meet it.

It was odd to stand there in the growing dusk, looking across to where
was the invading army, only a little over two thousand feet away. It
was rather horrible to see that beautiful landscape, the untravelled
road ending in the line of poplars, so very close, where were the
French outposts, and the shining water just beyond, and talk so calmly
of the death that was waiting for the first Germans who crossed the
canal.

CHAPTER XIX

"I NIBBLE THEM"

I went into the trenches. The captain was very proud of them.

"They represent the latest fashion in trenches!" he explained, smiling
faintly.

It seemed to me that I could easily have improved on that latest
fashion. The bottom was full of mud and water. Standing in the trench,
I could see over the side by making an effort. The walls were
wattled--that is, covered with an interlacing of fagots which made the
sides dry.

But it was not for that reason only that these trenches were called
the latest fashion. They were divided, every fifteen feet or so, by a
bulwark of earth about two feet thick, round which extended a
communication trench.

"The object of dividing these trenches in this manner is to limit the
havoc of shells that drop into them," the captain explained. "Without
the earth bulwark a shell can kill every man in the trench. In this
way it can kill only eight. Now stand at this