o jump over gaping trenches, and this is not always easy, for
the edges have become soft and slippery, and earth-falls have widened
them. Fatigue, too, begins to bear upon our shoulders. Vehicles cross
our path with a great noise and splashing. Artillery limbers prance by
and spray us heavily. The motor lorries are borne on whirling circles
of water around the wheels, with spirting tumultuous spokes.

As the darkness increases, the jolted vehicles and the horses' necks
and the profiles of the riders with their floating cloaks and slung
carbines stand out still more fantastically against the misty floods
from the sky. Here, there is a block of ammunition carts of the
artillery. The horses are standing and trampling as we go by. We hear
the creaking of axles, shouts, disputes, commands which collide, and
the roar of the ocean of rain. Over the confused scuffle we can see
steam rising from the buttocks of the teams and the cloaks of the
horsemen.

"Look out!" Something is laid out on the ground on our right--a row of
dead. As we go by, our feet instinctively avoid them and our eyes
search them. We see upright boot-soles, outstretched necks, the hollows
of uncertain faces, hands half clenched in the air over the dark medley.

We march and march, over fields still ghostly and foot-worn, under a
sky where ragged clouds unfurl themselves upon the blackening
expanse--which seems to have befouled itself by prolonged contact with
so many multitudes of sorry humanity.

Then we go down again into the communication trenches. To reach them we
make a wide circuit, so that the rearguard can see the whole company, a
hundred yards away, deployed in the gloom, little obscure figures
sticking to the slopes and following each other in loose order, with
their tools amid their rifles pricking up on each side of their heads,
a slender trivial line that plunges in and raises its arms as if in
entreaty.

These trenches--still of the second lines--are populous. On the
thresholds of the dug-outs, where cart-cloths and skins of animals hang
and flap, squatting and bearded men watch our passing with
expressionless eyes, as if they were looking at nothing. From beneath
other cloths, drawn down to the ground, feet are projected, and snores.

"Nom de Dieu! It's a long way!" the trampers begin to grumble. There is
an eddy and recoil in the flow.

"Halt!" The stop is to let others go by. We pile ourselves up, cursing,
on the walls of the trench.