Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/150

 we were to eat, and immediately made friends with the cook. Waiting around the post became very dull, and when the sergeant said that he didn't believe we would have a run before noon, we got his permission to take a short walk in the trenches which begin about one hundred feet behind our quarters. In barely five minutes we came to the second lines. While we were standing here, wondering whether we ought to go any further alone, a poilu from a nearby machine post came up. By tactful words and many cigarettes we got him to go with us up to the first line. He took us two or three kilometres along the front, explaining everything as we went from one place to another. I had my first peek through a field periscope at some German trenches fifty yards away, and at a listening post, which the Boches only use at night, twenty yards distant. We learned exactly how the communication trenches intertwine with the first, second and third lines, how there are grenade and observation posts a few yards apart, and where the deep abris are located in which thousands of cylinders of gas lie stored, ready at a moment's notice to be sent over to the German lines. Our guide told us the French had sent over a big attack last week and that the Boches would probably reply as soon as they got a favorable wind. While we were talking at this place a little toy balloon came sailing overhead, from the enemy's