north
looked as if some one had been experimenting with a well digger. One
21-centimeter shell had cut a swath about 100 yards long out of the
woods on the hill where we dismounted. The trees were twisted from their
stumps as if a small cyclone had passed, and one could realize the
damage the shells could do merely by the displaced air.

We went on forward into the valley on foot and stopped about two hundred
yards in front and to the left of where the German guns were firing.
There, although of course we could not see the French position, we could
hear and see their shells as they exploded. They were firing short, one
of the officers told me, because they thought the Germans were on the
forward hill. He could see one of the French aeroplanes directing their
fire, but I could not make it out. We stayed there listening to the
shells and watching the few movements of German batteries that were
taking place. A party of officers hidden by the trees were taking
observations and telephoning the results of the German fire and, no
doubt, of the French fire in the German trenches. There was no
excitement; but for the noise the whole scene reminded me of some kind
of construction work, such as building a railroad.

After about an hour, when nothing had happened, one began to realize
that even such excitement may become monotonous and be taken as a matter
of course. One of the officers told me that the Germans had been there
since the beginning of October and that even the trenches were in the
same position as when they first came.

Certainly the trenches seem permanent enough for spending many Winters.
A number of them have now been built of concrete, especially in that
swampy part near the Aisne where they strike water about three feet
underground. The difficulty is in draining out the water when it rains.

Some of the trenches have two stories, and at the back of many of them
are subterranean rest houses built of concrete and connected with the
trenches by passages. The rooms are about seven feet high and ten feet
square, and above the ground all evidence of the work is concealed by
green boughs and shrubbery so that they may escape the attention of the
enemy's aeroplanes.

With the noise and the fatigue, the men say it is impossible to sleep
naturally, but they become so used to the firing and so weary that they
become oblivious of everything even when shells are falling within a
dozen yards of them. They stay in the tren