In one place we must stoop very low to pass under a
heavy and glutinous bridge that crosses the trench, and we only get
through with difficulty. It obliges us to kneel in the mud, to
flatten ourselves on the ground, and to crawl on all fours for a few
paces. A little farther there are evolutions to perform as we grasp
a post that the sinking of the ground has set aslope across the
middle of the fairway.
We come to a trench-crossing. "Allons, forward! Look out for
yourselves, boys!" says the adjutant, who has flattened himself in a
corner to let us pass and to speak to us. "This is a bad spot."
"We're done up," shouts a voice so hoarse that I cannot identify the
speaker.
"Damn! I've enough of it, I'm stopping here," groans another, at the
end of his wind and his muscle.
"What do you want me to do?" replies the adjutant, "No fault of
mine. eh? Allons, get a move on, it's a bad spot--it was shelled at
the last relief!"
We go on through the tempest of wind and water. We seem to be going
ever down and down, as in a pit. We slip and tumble, butt into the
wall of the trench, into which we drive our elbows hard, so as to
throw ourselves upright again. Our going is a sort of long slide, on
which we keep up just how and where we can. What matters is to
stumble only forward, and as straight as possible.
Where are we? I lift my head, in spite of the billows of rain, out
of this gulf where we are struggling. Against the hardly discernible
background of the buried sky, I can make out the rim of the trench;
and there, rising before my eyes all at once and towering over that
rim, is something like a sinister doorway, made of two black posts
that lean one upon the other, with something hanging from the middle
like a torn-off scalp.
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