Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/117

Rh the streets, so that we had to zig-zag a course through. The shattered walls were pierced for rifle and machine guns.

"It won't do to go any farther with the cars," the staff officer said, “The entrance to the communication trench isn't far."

My curiosity increased. I wanted to know exactly what the entrance to a communication trench was like. I fancied that the pictures again would be wrong, and so they were.

We were walking, I remember, along a sidewalk in the shelter of some ruined walls. The sidewalk had a stone curb. Then I understood. The curb line ran level straight ahead, but a portion of the sidewalk, perhaps two feet wide, next to the curb, sloped gently downwards. In a moment we were walking shoulder high in an excavation such as one observes about unruly gas mains. Abruptly we were in the communication line.

The next thing was to know when one was for the first time under fire. The trench stretched diagonally across level fields. It was higher than one's head. It was impossible to see anything except the white mud through which one slipped, and the grass overhanging the edges. The guns were a great deal louder. The officer raised himself cautiously above the bank. I followed his