It is a company of machine-gunners with
their curious burdens.

There seems to be no end to it, and the long halts are wearying.
Muscles are beginning to stretch. The everlasting march is overwhelming
us. We have hardly got going again when we have to recoil once more
into a traverse to let the relief of the telephonists go by. We back
like awkward cattle, and restart more heavily.

"Look out for the wire!" The telephone wire undulates above the trench,
and crosses it in places between two posts. When it is too slack, its
curve sags into the trench and catches the rifles of passing men, and
the ensnared ones struggle, and abuse the engineers who don't know how
to fix up their threads.

Then, as the drooping entanglement of precious wires increases, we
shoulder our rifles with the butt in the air, carry the shovels under
our arms, and go forward with lowered heads.

* * * * *

Our progress now is suddenly checked, and we only advance step by step,
locked in each other. The head of the column must be in difficult case.
We reach a spot where failing ground leads to a yawning hole--the
Covered Trench. The others have disappeared through the low doorway.
"We've got to go into this blackpudding, then?"

Every man hesitates before ingulfing himself in the narrow underground
darkness, and it is the total of these hesitations and lingerings that
is reflected in the rear sections of the column in the form of
wavering, obstruction, and sometimes abrupt shocks.

From our first steps in the Covered Trench, a heavy darkness settles on
us and divides us from each other. The damp odor of a swamped cave
steals into us. In the ceiling of the earthen corridor that contains
us, we can make out a few streaks and holes of pallor--the chinks and
rents in the overhead planks. Little streams of water flow freely
through them in places, and in spite of tentative groping we stumble on
heaped-up timber. Alongside, our knocks discover the dim vertical
presence of the supporting beams.

The air in this interminable tunnel is vibrating heavily. It is the
searchlight engine that is installed there--we have to pass in front of
it.

After we have felt our deep-drowned way for a quarter of an hour, some
one who is overborne by the darkness and the wet, and tired of bumping
into unknown people, growls, "I don't care--I'm going to light up."

The brilliant beam of a little electric lamp flashes out, and instantly
the