We advanced more quickly in an eagerness to reach our underground home. We bumped the walls, sometimes so close together that our knapsacks stuck fast, so that we had to tear them loose with a considerable effort. All the time we shuddered at the nasty whistle of the shells, which passed to fall and crash behind. One felt that he must escape; must get out of this place where, if he remained, he was sure to be mashed like a strawberry in a marmalade. The march quickened so that we almost ran, staggering against the trench walls at every sudden turn of its meandering course and always, above us, that terrible screaming and those crashing explosions. Lord! But our cheeks were pale and our looks anxious. Later we stood it better as we became accustomed to it. This, however, was our first moment under fire, our first meeting with the foe, and we felt crushed by the narrow confines of this fissure in which we could only follow the column--a column without end, which straggled over too great a length in spite of the efforts of the officers to hurry the men and to close up the distances. Suddenly we emerged into open ground. A railroad-embankment with its rails in place, its telegraph-poles still standing and occasionally a flagman’s house still in good condition, hid us from the enemy. At one bound we glued ourselves to this embankment, flattening our bodies on the ground; for the German shells continued to lash the air, while out on the plain gray puffs marked their explosions. Some comrades, whose easy gait showed their familiarity with the place, were already advancing toward us. They motioned to us and pointed out the dugouts. “This way. Don’t stay there.” We followed their directions on the run and entered by groups into the shelters they had indicated. Here, packed together so closely that we could not budge, we waited for the storm to pass. In the abri were some wounded on their way to the dressing-station, and we felt the deepest emotion at seeing the stretchers with their mangled and groaning burdens. At last the firing stopped. We waited for orders. The sergeants were called together for instruction. Soon they came back and then our work began. We first laid aside our knapsacks and grouped ourselves by squads. Then we picked out tools from a long pile of shovels and pickaxes, and followed the non-coms along the embankment, a little nervous, it is true, but curious about the work we were to do. “Two picks, one shovel,” came the order. “Two picks, one shovel,” repeated the sergeants as they placed us at our distances. “Voilà! You are going to dig here. Loosen the ground with the picks and clear it away with the shovels. Do you understand?”