In these first weeks of intrenched warfare, movements of this sort were relatively easy. We were hidden in the darkness: we had only to leap the embankment and move to our places. The enemy replied only when he heard a noise, and fired quite at random. His commonest field-piece was the light seventy-seven, which barked loudly but did little damage, and the workmen of the two camps matched their skill at only a hundred metres’ distance, without hurting each other very much. This evening they placed us behind some trees at a roadside. “Fire only on order,” said the officers. “One of our companies is out in front fixing the wire. If you fire, you risk wounding your comrades.” They repeated their instructions to the sergeants and thus began our first night at the front. Each one watched as well as he could, straining his eyes in the effort to pierce the blackness, hearing the blows of the mallets on the stakes and thrilling at the fusillade. A night is long. A night in November is cold. It freezes. We shivered out there in the dark, but we did not dare to budge. The noise of shooting was almost constant, and bullets were striking everywhere about us, ringing on the stones, clipping twigs from the trees or sinking dully into the soil. Our teeth chattered; we shivered; we tried to warm our hands by rubbing them. Some rash ones stamped their feet to restore the circulation, and from time to time we heard a muffled conversation. We didn’t know where we were nor the distance which separated us from the enemy. We feared a possible ambush, a surprise attack maybe, and we pinched ourselves to keep awake. The hours seemed deadly long. At last we saw the dirty gray of dawn overspread the sky and slowly dissipate the thick mist that rose from the earth. Clumps of trees and underwood, little by little, took form. No sooner were they fully visible than a terrible fusillade broke out, lashing the air like a thousand hisses; a crackling shower of bullets that rolled and rattled like hail. They cut the branches just above us and made the pebbles fly. We crouched to the ground; buckling our sacks, gripping our guns, hunching our shoulders and tensing our legs to be ready for the expected attack. “Get ready to go back,” whispered the sergeants and the order was repeated along the line. We crept, we crawled like slugs, profiting by the smallest tuft of grass, the shallowest recess in the ground that might serve as a shield, but with little hope of escape.