ill in single file, under the winter stars. . . .
Through openings in the woods we could see that we were marching
along a high ridge, and on either hand vaporous depths and distances expanded,
the darkness broken sometimes by a far light or the momentary glow
of a magnesium rocket sent up from the German lines.
There is something fascinating if one is stationed on sentry-duty
immediately after arrival, in watching the dawn slowly illumine
one of these new landscapes, from a position taken up under cover of darkness.
The other section has been relieved and departs. We are given the 'consigne',
by the preceding sentinel, and are left alone behind a mound of dirt,
facing the north and the blank, perilous night. Slowly the mystery
that it shrouds resolves as the grey light steals over the eastern hills.
Like a photograph in the washing, its high lights and shadows
come gradually forth. The light splash in the foreground
becomes a ruined chateau, the grey street a demolished village.

The details come out on the hillside opposite, where the silent trenches
of the enemy are hidden a few hundred metres away. We find ourselves
in a woody, mountainous country, with broad horizons and streaks of mist
in the valleys. Our position is excellent this time, a high crest,
with open land sloping down from the trenches and plenty of barbed wire
strung along immediately in front. It would be a hard task
to carry such a line, and there is not much danger that the enemy will try.

With increasing daylight the sentinel takes a sheltered position,
and surveys his new environment through little gaps where the mounds
have been crenellated and covered with branches. Suddenly he starts
as a metallic bang rings out from the woods immediately behind him.
It is of the unmistakable voice of a French 75 starting the day's
artillery duel. By the time the sentinel is relieved, in broad daylight,
the cannonade is general all along the line. He surrenders his post
to a comrade, and crawls down into his bombproof dugout almost reluctantly,
for the long day of inactive waiting has commenced.

==

Though he never expresses even a momentary regret for the choice he has made,
he freely admits that trench warfare is "anything but romantic".
For the artilleryman it is "doubtless very interesting"
but "the poor common soldier" has a pretty mean time of it:

==

His rule is simply to dig himself a hole in the ground
and to keep hidden in it as tig