uled feet.

The roars of the artillery succeed each other faster and faster, till
they make but a single roar upon all the earth. From all sides the
gunfire and the bursting shells hurl their swift shafts of light and
stripe confusedly the black sky over our heads. The bombardment then
becomes so intense that its illumination has no break. In the
continuous chain of thunderbolts we can see each other clearly--our
helmets streaming like the bodies of fishes, our sodden leathers, the
shovel-blades black and glistening; we can even see the pale drops of
the unending rain. Never have I seen the like of it; in very truth it
is moonlight made by gunfire.

Together there mounts from our lines and from the enemy's such a cloud
of rockets that they unite and mingle in constellations; at one moment,
to light us on our hideous way, there was a Great Bear of star-shells
in the valley of the sky that we could see between the parapets.

* * * * *

We are lost again, and this time we must be close to the first lines;
but a depression in this part of the plain forms a sort of basin,
overrun by shadows. We have marched along a sap and then back again. In
the phosphorescent vibration of the guns, shimmering like a
cinematograph, we make out above the parapet two stretcher-bearers
trying to cross the trench with their laden stretcher.

The lieutenant, who at least knows the place where he should guide the
team of workers, questions them, "Where is the New Trench?"--"Don't
know." From the ranks another question is put to them, "How far are we
from the Boches?" They make no reply, as they are talking among
themselves.

"I'm stopping," says the man in front; "I'm too tired."

"Come, get on with you, nom de Dieu!" says the other in a surly tone
and floundering heavily, his arms extended by the stretcher. "We can't
step and rust here."

They put the stretcher down on the parapet, the edge of it overhanging
the trench, and as we pass underneath we can see the prostrate man's
feet. The rain which falls on the stretcher drains from it darkened.

"Wounded?" some one asks down below.

"No, a stiff," growls the bearer this time, "and he weighs twelve stone
at least. Wounded I don't mind--for two days and two nights we haven't
left off carrying 'em--but it's rotten, breaking yourself up with
lugging dead men about." And the bearer, upright on the edge of the
bank, drops a foot to the base of the opposite bank acr