Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/256

222 lessness to keep out of each other's way. Their respirators were conveniently at hand.

At the positions men crouched in funk holes, sleeping by turn. There lay one moaning softly with a bad touch of shell shock. Now and then a soldier paused and spoke to him sympathetically; for the hardicst realized that this was illness, not cowardicc. You had only to feel his weak and rapid pulse. The surgeon was on his way.

Details struggled with the flat tops, softening angles against the daylight. Nearly motionless the rocket guards gazed in the direction of Boston. Vestling against the lip of the bill was a wan patch, like a dying bit of fox fire. It was a shelter tent, blanketed, and with flaps down where two officers worked over the intricate figures of new barrages.

Even in that unrevealing starlight each man you saw projected an expression of extreme weariness. And already many were ill with the dysentery that got us all sooner or later. And there was no prospect ahead of real sleep as long as we should stay in that place.

There seemed no diminution in the fire even when the stars paled. The details took advantage of the first light and went over the lines while Hun aeroplanes loafed about the ridge and the positions.

Instead of the brisk fresliness of early morning we breathed the warning odor of animal decay.

The last officer of the 16th walked through Les Près Farm, asking about his horse, reminiscing disjointedly about his escapes. We watched him go without saying anything, wondering when we would follow him and how.