Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/124

98 The officer had opened a trap door. With muttered warnings to avoid a misstep he helped us through into what might have been a little shelter, roughly constructed and too low, arranged on the summit of some lofty monument. Openings on each side were curtained by dark canvas flaps. The officer closed the trap door. He unfastened the flap in front and raised it.

Look," he whispered. “Our trenches and the Boche!"

But the first thing we saw was grass, and we couldn't understand. Then it came to us. After that climb we were at the level of the ground. The officer smiled.

“But there is a little ridge here and one can see very well. It is necessary to enter that way in order that the enemy may have no suspicion."

For a long time we stared across the slowly waving grass at the routine of war. Not many yards ahead of us was a deep wide fosse. At intervals blue-overcoated forms, holding rifles extended across the parapet, were like statues. A hundred yards beyond them white mounds straggled a parallel course. The interval was a jungle of weeds and barbed wire. A few skeleton trees in the distance stretched their branches in gestures of protest. Poppies, scarlet and significant against the white soil and the dun vegetation,