The sentry, now smiling, saluted the Major as the latter conducted the party quietly around the trench corner and into a sap leading directly out into No Man's Land. Twice the trench passed under broad belts of barbed wire, which we were cautioned to avoid with our helmets, because any sound was undesirable for obvious reasons. After several minutes of this cautious advance, we reached a small listening post that marked the closest point in the sector to the German line. Several silent sentries were crouching on the edge of the pit. Gunny sacks covered the hole and screened it in front and above. We remained silent while the Major in the lowest whisper spoke with a corporal and learned that except for two or three occasions, when the watchers thought they heard sounds near our wire, the night had been calm. We departed as silently as we came. The German line from a distance of forty yards looked no different from its appearance at a greater distance, but since it was closer, it was carried with a constant tingle of anticipation. Into another communicating trench and through better walled fortifications of splintered forest, the Major led us to a place where the recent shelling had changed twenty feet of trench into a gaping gulley almost without sides and waist-deep in water. A working detail was endeavouring to repair the damage. In parties of two, we left the trench and crossed an open space on the level. The forty steps we covered across that forbidden ground were like stolen fruit. Such rapture! Bazin, who was seeking a title for a book, pulled "Eureka!" "Over the top armed with a pencil," he said. "Not bad, eh?" Back in Seicheprey, just before the Major left us for our long trip back to quarters, he led the way to the entrance of a cemetery, well kept in the midst of surrounding chaos. Graves of French dead ranged row upon row. "I just wanted to show you some of the fellows that held this line until we took it over," he said simply. "Our own boys that we've lost since we've been here, are buried down in the next village." We silently saluted the spot as we passed it thirty minutes later. CHAPTER IX THE NIGHT OUR GUNS CUT LOOSE As soon as our forces had made themselves at home in the Toul sector, it was inevitable that belligerent activity would increase and this, in spite of the issuance of strict orders that there should be no development of the normal daily fire. Our men could not entirely resist the temptation to start something. As was to be expected, the Germans soon began to suspect that they were faced by different troops from the ones who had been confronting them. The enemy set out to verify his suspicions. He made his first raid on the American line. It was in a dense mist on the morning of January 30th that the Germans lowered a terrific barrage on one of our advance listening posts and then rushed the position with a raiding party outnumbering the defendants ten to one.