"Where the--where are you coming from, that way?"
They laugh, jump about like puppets, full-blooded and streaming with
perspiration, blacker than ever in the night. The German officer's
helmet is gleaming in the hands of Pepin. "Oh, Christ!"
murmurs the sentry, with gaping mouth, "but what's been up?"
An exuberant reaction excites and bewitches them. All talk at once.
In haste and confusion they act again the drama which hardly yet
they realize is over. They had gone wrong when they left the sleepy
sentry and had taken the International Trench, of which a part is
ours and another part German. Between the French and German sections
there is no barricade or division. There is merely a sort of neutral
zone, at the two ends of which sentries watch ceaselessly. No doubt
the German watcher was not at his post, or likely he hid himself
when he saw the four shadows, or perhaps be doubled back and had not
time to bring up reinforcements. Or perhaps, too, the German officer
had strayed too far ahead in the neutral zone. In short, one
understands what happened without understanding it.
"The funny part of it," says Pepin, "is that we knew all
about that, and never thought to be careful about it when we set
off."
"We were looking for matches," says Volpatte.
"And we've got some!" cries Pepin. "You've not lost the
flamers, old broomstick?"
"No damned fear!" says Blaire; "Boche matches are better stuff than
ours. Besides, they're all we've got to light our fire! Lose my box?
Let any one try to pinch it off me!"
"We're behind time--the soup-water'll be freezing.
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