To my seeing they are like strokes of a pen scratched upon
the pale and perforated ground. Lower down, the ravine is filled
with the motionless silence of the ocean of night.
I come down from my look-out and steer at a guess towards my
neighbor in vigil, and come upon him with outstretched hand. "Is
that you?" I say to him in a subdued voice, though I don't know him.
"Yes," he replies, equally ignorant who I am, blind like myself.
"It's quiet at this time," he adds "A bit since I thought they were
going to attack, and they may have tried it on, on the right, where
they chucked over a lot of bombs. There's been a barrage of
75's--vrrrran, vrrrran--Old man, I said to myself, 'Those 75's,
p'raps they've good reason for firing. If they did come out, the
Boches, they must have found something.' Tiens, listen, down there,
the bullets buffing themselves!"
He opens his flask and takes a draught, and his last words, still
subdued, smell of wine: "Ah, la, la! Talk about a filthy war! Don't
you think we should be a lot better at home!--Hullo! What's the
matter with the ass?" A rifle has rung out beside us, making a brief
and sudden flash of phosphorescence. Others go off here and there
along our line. Rifle-shots are catching after dark.
We go to inquire of one of the shooters, guessing our way through
the solid blackness that has fallen again upon us like a roof.
Stumbling, and thrown anon on each other, we reach the man and touch
him--"Well, what's up?"
He thought he saw something moving, but there is nothing more.
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