Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/177

Rh that this closing of the mind to everything except the immediate future is nearly universal. For it they express a rather pitiful gratitude.

So we walked on, and nothing came too close. We reached the goal of the shattered wall and took breath for a moment behind it. A straight highway receded between turn trees. On a split sign-board a name was decipherable, familiar to any one who has motored through Belgium and northern France. There were shell craters in every direction. The machine guns had resumed their hateful petulance. We knew that the communication trench must be near. No one asked. It was easier for the moment not to talk.

The brigade officer folded his map and thrust it in his pocket. He led us around the wall and into a screen of bushes from which a narrow passage sloped downwards. We descended only a little way, to find the walls artificially raised.

"That's the worst of trench digging in this blessed bog," the officer said. “Go down two feet and you strike water. Trench walls have to be raised like these. They're a lot easier knocked over by shell fire, too."

We had no criticism to offer of the communication line. To be sure, its close sides admitted none of the pleasant breeze, and those steel helmets were demanding the price of their pro-