sergeant bellows, "Ye gods! Who's the complete ass that's making a
light? Are you daft? Don't you know it can be seen, you scab, through
the roof?"

The flash-lamp, after revealing some dark and oozing walls in its cone
of light, retires into the night. "Not much you can't see it!" jeers
the man, "and anyway we're not in the first lines." "Ah, that can't be
seen!"

The sergeant, wedged into the file and continuing to advance, appears
to be turning round as he goes and attempting some forceful
observations--"You gallows-bird! You damned dodger!" But suddenly he
starts a new roar--"What! Another man smoking now! Holy hell!" This
time he tries to halt, but in vain he rears himself against the wall
and struggles to stick to it. He is forced precipitately to go with the
stream and is carried away among his own shouts, which return and
swallow him up, while the cigarette, the cause of his rage, disappears
in silence.

* * * * *

The jerky beat of the engine grows louder, and an increasing heat
surrounds us. The overcharged air of the trench vibrates more and more
as we go forward. The engine's jarring note soon hammers our ears and
shakes us through. Still it gets hotter; it is like some great animal
breathing in our faces. The buried trench seems to be leading us down
and down into the tumult of some infernal workshop, whose dark-red glow
is sketching out our huge and curving shadows in purple on the walls.

In a diabolical crescendo of din, of hot wind and of lights, we flow
deafened towards the furnace. One would think that the engine itself
was hurling itself through the tunnel to meet us, like a frantic
motor-cyclist drawing dizzily near with his headlight and destruction.

Scorched and half blinded, we pass in front of the red furnace and the
black engine, whose flywheel roars like a hurricane, and we have hardly
time to make out the movements of men around it. We shut our eyes,
choked by the contact of this glaring white-hot breath.

Now, the noise and the heat are raging behind us and growing feebler,
and my neighbor mutters in his beard, "And that idiot that said my lamp
would be seen!"

And here is the free air! The sky is a very dark blue, of the same
color as the earth and little lighter. The rain becomes worse and
worse, and walking is laborious in the heavy slime. The whole boot
sinks in, and it is a labor of acute pain to withdraw the foot every
time. Hardly anything is left