an officer beckoned, and we stepped outside the breastworks and
into an intricate cat's-cradle of barbed-wire. It was lashed to heavy
stakes and wound around the tree trunks, and, had the officer not led
the way, it would have been impossible for me to get either in or out.
At intervals, like clothes on a line, on the wires were strung empty tin
cans, pans and pots, and glass bottles. To attempt to cross the
entanglement would have made a noise like a peddler's cart bumping over
cobbles.

We came to the edge of the barb-wire, and what looked like part of a
tree trunk turned into a man-sized bird's nest. The sentry in the nest
had his back to us, and was peering intently down through the branches
of the tree tops. He remained so long motionless that I thought he was
not aware of our approach. But he had heard us. Only it was no part of
his orders to make abrupt movements. With infinite caution, with the
most considerate slowness, he turned, scowled, and waved us back. It was
the care with which he made even so slight a gesture that persuaded me
the Germans were as close as the colonel had said. My curiosity
concerning them was satisfied. The sentry did not need to wave me back.
I was already on my way.

At the post of observation I saw a dog-kennel.

"There are watchdogs on our side, also?" I said.

"Yes," the officer assented doubtfully.

"The idea is that their hearing is better than that of the men, and in
case of night attacks they will warn us. But during the day they get so
excited barking at the _boche_ dogs that when darkness comes, and we
need them, they are worn-out and fall asleep."

We continued through the forest, and wherever we went found men at work
repairing the path and pushing the barb-wire and trenches nearer the
enemy. In some places they worked with great caution as, hidden by the
ferns, they dragged behind them the coils of wire; sometimes they were
able to work openly, and the forest resounded with the blows of axes and
the crash of a falling tree. But an axe in a forest does not suggest
war, and the scene was still one of peace and beauty.

For miles the men had lined the path with borders of moss six inches
wide, and with strips of bark had decorated the huts and shelters.
Across the tiny ravines they had thrown what in seed catalogues are
called "rustic" bridges. As we walked in single file between these
carefully laid borders of moss and past the shelters that suggested only
a gamekeep