Over the crest of the hill we came on long lines of soldiers bearing timbers and fascines for trench building, which explained why some of the villages were empty. A fascine is something usually made of woven branches which will hold dirt in position. The woven wicker cases for shells which the German artillery uses and leaves behind when it has to quit the field in a hurry, make excellent fascines, and a number that I saw were of this ready-made kind. After carrying shells for killing Frenchmen they were to protect the lives of Frenchmen. Near by other soldiers were turning up a strip of fresh earth against the snow, which looked like a rip in the frosting of a chocolate cake. “How do you like this kind of war?” we asked. It is the kind that irrigationists and subway excavators do. “We’ve grown to be very fond of it,” was the answer. “It is a cultivated taste, which becomes a passion with experience. After you have been shot at in the open you want all the earth you can get between you and the bullets.” Now we alighted from the automobile and went forward on foot. We passed some eight lines of trenches before we came to the one where we were to stop. A practised military eye had gone over all that ground; a practised military hand had laid out each trench. After the work was done the civilian’s eye could grasp the principle. If one trench were taken, the men knew exactly how to fall back on the next, which commanded the ground they had left. The trenches were not continuous. There were open spaces left purposely. All that front was literally locked, and double and triple locked, with trenches. Break through one barred door and there is another and another confronting you. Considering the millions of burrowing and digging and watching soldiers, it occurred to one that if a _marmite_ (saucepan) came along and buried our little party, our loss would not be as much noticed as if a piece of coping from a high building had fallen and extinguished us on Broadway, which would be a relatively novel way of dying. Being killed in war had long ceased to be a novelty on the continent of Europe. We seemed in a dead world, except for the leisurely, hoarse, muffled reports of a French gun in the woods on either side of the open space where we stood. Through our glasses we could see quite clearly the line of the German front trench, which was in the outskirts of a village on higher ground than the French. Not a human being was visible. Both sides were watching for any move of the other and meanwhile lying tight under cover. By day they were marooned. All supplies and all reliefs of men who are to take their turn in front go out by night.