trements on that huge sloping sewer. As they swarmed up the chaos
of oblique darkness which pushed them back, the men gave signs of
exhaustion and anger. Cries of "Forward! Forward!" surrounded us on
all sides, harsh cries like barks, and I heard, near me, Adjutant
Marcassin's voice, growling, "What about it, then? It's for France's
sake!" Arrived at the top of the hill, we went down the other slope.
The order came to put pipes out and advance in silence. A world of
noises was coming to life in the distance.

A gateway made its sudden appearance in the night. We scattered among
flat buildings, whose walls here and there showed black holes, like
ovens, while the approaches were obstructed with plaster rubbish and
nail-studded beams. In places the recent collapse of stones, cement
and plaster had laid on the bricks a new and vivid whiteness that was
visible in the dark.

"It's the glass works," said a soldier to me.

We halted a moment in a passage whose walls and windows were broken,
where we could not make a step or sit down without breaking glass. We
left the works by sticky footpaths, full of rubbish at first, and then
of mud. Across marshy flats, chilly and sinister, obscurely lighted by
the night, we came to the edge of an immense and pallid crater. The
depths of this abyss were populated with glimmers and murmurs; and all
around a soaked and ink-black expanse of country glistened to infinity.

"It's the quarry," they informed me.

Our endless and bottomless march continued. Sliding and slipping we
descended, burying ourselves in these profundities and gropingly
encountering the hurly-burly of a convoy of carts and the advance guard
of the regiment we were relieving. We passed heaped-up hutments at the
foot of the circular chalky cliff that we could see dimly drawn among
the black circles of space. The sound of shots drew near and
multiplied on all sides; the vibration of artillery fire outspread
under our feet and over our heads.

I found myself suddenly in front of a narrow and muddy ravine into
which the others were plunging one by one.

"It's the trench," whispered the man who was following me; "you can see
its beginning, but you never see its blinking end. Anyway, on you go!"

We followed the trench along for three hours. For three hours we
continued to immerse ourselves in distance and solitude, to immure
ourselves in night, scraping its walls with our loads, and sometimes
violently pu