Like a latrine built for a corps of monsters stretched the slippery trench. Approaching it through the narrow communication gully, the men slid and stumbled from the slatted-board bottom into the mire. They would withdraw their legs from the mud, the mud making a “pflung” as the foot rose above it. The platoon filed into the trench, and crouched low against the firing bays their bayonets peeping over the top. After hours on the road the trench was warm to their bodies, despite its mud and slime. Their eyes staring into the black night, the men waited. Hard, cold, and unfriendly dawn broke over the earth like a thin coating of ice shattering in a wash-basin. In the eerie light the tangled masses of wire, the weather-beaten posts from which the wire was strung, the articles of equipment and clothing once worn by men looked unreal. The woods ahead, a grayish black, lay against the sky like a spiked wall. Hicks, his face pressed against the muddy side of the trench, felt sick. Along the road his body had been shaken with chills. Now the muscles of his stomach were contracting, forcing him to gag. He thought of poking his soiled finger down his throat, but the thought of it was so revolting that he only gagged more violently. Crouching there, he had no desire to leave the trench. Why should he leave it, he asked himself, and could find no reason. Possibly for an hour during his whole life he had hated the German army. Now he only disliked them. And for one reason: because they marched in a goose-step. He felt that for any people to march in that manner was embarrassing to the rest of humanity. Somehow it severed them from the rest of their kind. But that was little reason, he realized, to drag his weary body over a repulsive ground. He was conscious of a sensation of numbness. “Je’s, I’m sick,” he groaned to the man next to him. “I don’t know whether I can go over. I’m all in.” “Why don’t you go back? Tell one of the officers. He’ll send you back.” “Yeh. And have every one of you birds think I’m yellow? I _will_ not. I’ll be all right,” he added. The roar of the guns deepened. A heavy curtain of exploding shells lay between the platoon and the German lines. The barrage lifted and started to move. Whistles were imperatively blown along the trench, commanding the men to rise and begin the advance. As if it were their last mortal act, the men clambered out of the trench and started to walk. * * * * * Bent over, like a feeble old man, Hicks walked abreast of the first wave. His respirator hung heavily from around his neck. He clutched at his collar, loosening it more freely to breathe. His legs were made of wood, they felt light, but hesitated to bend. His nostrils were being flattened against his face by huge, unseen thumbs. “Hell, Heaven, or Hoboken by Christmas,” he thought, adding “Probably hell for all of us.”