Then I cleave the heavy odor that fills the dug-out
and crawl out in the middle of the dense gloom between the collapsed
bodies of the sleepers. After several stumbles and entanglements
among accouterments, knapsacks and limbs stretched out in all
directions, I put my hand on my rifle and find myself upright in the
open air, half awake and dubiously balanced, assailed by the black
and bitter breeze.
Shivering, I follow the corporal; he plunges in between the dark
embankments whose lower ends press strangely and closely on our
march. He stops; the place is here. I make out a heavy mass half-way
up the ghostly wail which comes loose and descends from it with a
whinnying yawn, and I hoist myself into the niche which it had
occupied.
The moon is hidden by mist, but a very weak and uncertain light
overspreads the scene, and one's sight gropes its way. Then a wide
strip of darkness, hovering and gliding up aloft, puts it out. Even
after touching the breastwork and the loophole in front of my face I
can hardly make them out, and my inquiring hand discovers, among an
ordered deposit of things, a mass of grenade handles.
"Keep your eye skinned, old chap," says Bertrand in a low voice.
"Don't forget that our listening-post is in front there on the left.
Allons, so long." His steps die away, followed by those of the
sleepy sentry whom I am relieving.
Rifle-shots crackle all round. Abruptly a bullet smacks the earth of
the wall against which I am leaning.
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