Two posts lean one upon the other,
with a confusion of electric wires between them, hanging down like
tropical creepers. It looks well. You would say it was a theatrical
contrivance or scene. A slender climbing plant twines round one of
the posts, and as you follow it with your glance, you see that it
already dares to pass from one to the other.
Soon, passing along this trench whose grassy slopes quiver like the
flanks of a fine horse, we come out into our own trench on the
Bethune road, and here is our place. Our comrades are there,
in clusters. They are eating, and enjoying the goodly temperature.
The meal finished, we clean our aluminium mess-tins or plates with a
morsel of bread. "Tiens, the sun's going!" It is true; a cloud has
passed over and hidden it. "It's going to splash, my little lads,"
says Lamuse "that's our luck all over! Just as we are going off!"
"A damned country!" says Fouillade. In truth this Northern climate
is not worth much. It drizzles and mizzles, reeks and rains. And
when there is any sun it soon disappears in the middle of this great
damp sky.
Our four days in the trenches are finished, and the relief will
commence at nightfall. Leisurely we get ready for leaving. We fill
and put aside the knapsacks and bags. We give a rub to the rifles
and wrap them up.
It is already four o'clock. Darkness is falling quickly, and we grow
indistinct to each other. "Damnation. Here's the rain!" A few drops
and then the downpour.
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