Explosions, nearer and yet nearer. The earth quivers under the continuous shell-bursts. An acrid smoke spreads in the trenches, now all alive. The men rush to arms. With an eye glued to their peep-holes the look-outs feverishly scrutinise the enemy's lines, while the infantry lean against the broad, high parapets or crouch in their dug-outs, stoically waiting for the rain of steel and fire to cease falling about their ears. [Illustration: A FRONT-LINE TRENCH IN THE SOUTHERN SECTOR OF THE BELGIAN FRONT] [Illustration: A FOOTBRIDGE THROUGH THE FLOODS _Replaces a Road and carries a Narrow-gauge Railway_.] [Illustration: AN OUTPOST AMONG THE FLOODS _Armed with Machine-guns_.] But the bombardment, far from dying down, seems to increase in fury. Here come grenades and torpedoes, bursting everywhere with a terrible din, excavating huge holes in the ground, throwing up great sheaves of earth and mud, scattering sand-bags, stakes, planks and beams in all directions, demolishing with fiendish persistency the ramparts built so painstakingly by our stubborn workers. We on our part have been prompt to reply to the enemy's fire. Our gunners are already busy; mortars and bomb-throwers discharge a stream of projectiles into the opposite trenches without intermission. And soon, far away on the plain, the batteries also lift up their voices. The long-drawn-out, deep growls of the heavy guns mingle with the sharp barks of the "soixante-quinze." Everything round about the bombarded trench seems to be engulfed in the terrific uproar. The struggle continues obstinately, with periodic bursts of excessive violence, until the enemy's fire is mastered and dies away into silence. When quiet returns, the officer of the guard, in his half-demolished post, pens his terse report by the flickering light of a candle:-- "To-day, from 4 to 8 p.m., the trench occupied by my company was heavily bombarded. Shells and bombs have damaged our works very seriously for about 50 yards. Two shelters were entirely destroyed. The men behaved splendidly in spite of heavy losses: 10 killed, 27 wounded--a dozen severely. Stretcher-bearers just arrived. The company has got to work again. Moral excellent." * * * * * * Some may imagine that the Belgian troops must have had their readiness to attack blunted, and their desire to leap over the entanglements and hurl themselves on the enemy weakened, by their long immobility in the same trenches, by the never-ending construction of defensive works, by the interminable residence in the same monotonous environment.