Who will dare stand among the ruins? Here comes a sapper followed by another from behind a traverse to survey the desolation. Well is it that night approaches to cover the adventure. It is more than dusk already. Into the breach they vault with fluttering hearts, for no panoply guards them; no helmet, no cuirass, protects them. Soon the emotion passes and the calmness of extremity prepares them for the worst. Each has his cap pressed down on his brow, and his greatcoat—pegged or pinned in front, with perhaps a solitary button to connect the breasts—is girdled with a couple of well-worn belchers or a piece of cordage. Removing the debris, they build up the faces with fresh materials handed to them by some constant linesmen. Now a gabion is fixed and others are forced into position in quick succession. Sand-bags are crushed into the baskets till they creak, and others, laid row on row, crown the work. Care is taken to give the necessary slopes to the cheeks to prevent them tumbling down. All the interstices and crests are made solid with rammed earth and bags, and not a nook or chink occurs but something is found to jam into it to make it whole. Upon the merlon toils another sapper strengthening it with stones and earth handed to him by his assistants in the battery. Perspiration drops like rain over his beard, and, driven by his strong energy through every pore, moistens the rags which cover him from the night damp. Some bales of hides being brought, feeling makes up for the want of vision in so dark a night, and the cheeks are at length covered with hairy skins. Prudence has adapted their use as well to aid in preserving the embrasures, as to save them from flaming during the rapidity of our own fire. Now the sole of the opening is being improved and sloped. Up to the front the comrades push. So far are they away you scarce can see them. Deadly missiles fly onward and around and Minié bullets with a wheezing noise spend their force in the parapet. Who’s touched? Neither. One however has had a ball through his cap. Still on they work with strength somewhat abated, but no deterioration of spirit, till a couple of gabions, struck behind by a shell, are forced outwards and knock down the operators. The fall of one is awkward, for his head overhangs the trench and the shelving slope of the sole threatens to shoot him headlong into the ditch. Catching at a stake he breaks his descent and wriggling back into the aperture, crawls to the spot where his exertions were interrupted. Joined by his comrade just rising from beneath a pile of broken sand-bags they recommence the restoration. Fair excuse this for suspending the work but undismayed they persevere. Eventually their toils end; their work is completed; and after six hours’ exposure, they quit the scene uninjured. It is otherwise in the next embrasure, for one is mown down by a shot and the other badly wounded. Such is the fortune of war.