In the fear that their contact evoked we groaned
again, "We shan't get out of this; nobody will get out of it."
Suddenly a gap appeared in the compressed humanity, and those behind
breathed again, for we were on the move.
We began by crawling, then we ran, bowed low in the mud and water
that mirrored the flashes and the crimson gleams, stumbling and
falling over submerged obstructions, ourselves resembling heavy
splashing projectiles, thunder-hurled along the ground. We arrive at
the starting-place of the trench we had begun to dig.
"There's no trench--there's nothing."
In truth the eye could discern no shelter in the plain where our
work had begun. Even by the stormy flash of the rockets we could
only see the plain, a huge and raging desert. The trench could not
be far away, for it had brought us here. But which way must we steer
to find it?
The rain redoubled. We lingered a moment in mournful disappointment,
gathered on a lightning-smitten and unknown shore--and then the
stampede.
Some bore to the left, some to the right, some went straight
forward--tiny groups that one only saw for a second in the heart of
the thundering rain before they were separated by sable avalanches
and curtains of flaming smoke.
* * * * * *
The bombardment over our heads grew less; it was chiefly over the
place where we had been that it was increasing. But it might any
minute isolate everything and destroy it.
The rain became more and more torrential--a deluge in the night.
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