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Page 3
"This is the life," said Wharton, resuming his usual cheerfulness. "I
take back what I said about our beautiful trench. Just now I appreciate
it more than I would the greenest and loveliest landscape in England or
all America. Oh, it's a glorious trench! A splendid fortress for weak
human flesh, finer than any castle that was ever built!"
"Don't be dithyrambic, Wharton," said Carstairs. "Besides the change is
too sudden. It hasn't been a minute since you were pouring abuse upon
our safe and happy little trench."
"It's time for the Germans to begin," said John, looking at his watch.
"We'd better lie close for the next hour."
They heard the shrieking of more shells and soon the whole earth rocked
with the fire of the great guns. The hostile trenches were only a few
hundred yards in front of them, but the German batteries all masked, or
placed in pits, were much further away. The French cannon were stationed
in like fashion behind their own trenches.
John and his comrades, for the allotted hour, hugged the side of the
trench nearest to the Germans. The shells from the heavy guns came at
regular intervals. Far in the rear men were killed and others were
wounded, but no fragment of steel dropped in their trench. There was not
much danger unless one of the shells should burst almost directly over
their heads, and they were so used to these bombardments that they paid
little attention to them, except to keep close as long as they lasted.
Wharton resumed his novel, Carstairs, sitting on one end of a rude
wooden bench, began a game of solitaire, and John, at the other end,
gave himself over to dreaming, which the regulated thunder of many
cannon did not disturb at all.
It had been months now since he had parted with Philip and Julie Lannes.
He had seen Philip twice since, but Julie not at all When the German
army made a successful stand near the river Aisne, and both sides went
into trenches, Lannes had come in the _Arrow_ and, in reply to John's
restrained but none the less eager questions, had said that Julie was
safe in Paris again with her mother, Antoine Picard and the faithful
Suzanne. She had wanted to return to the front as a Red Cross nurse,
but Madame Lannes would not let her go.
A month later he saw Lannes again and Julie was still in the capital,
but he inferred from Philip's words rather than his tone that she was
impatient. Thousands of French girls were at the front, attending to the
wounded, and sharing hardship and danger. John knew that Julie had a
will like her brother's and he believed that, in time, she would surely
come again to the battle lines.
The thought made him smile, and he felt a light glow pass over his face.
He knew it was due to the belief that he would see Julie once more, and
yet the trenches now extended about four hundred miles across Northern
France and Belgium. The chances seemed a hundred to one against her
arrival in the particular trench, honored by the presence of the
Strangers, but John felt that in reality they were a hundred to one in
favor of it. He wished it so earnestly that it must come true.
"You're smiling, Scott," said Carstairs. "A good honest English penny
for your thoughts."
"What do I care for money? What could I do with it if I had it, held
here between walls of mud only four feet apart?"
"At least," interrupted Wharton, "the high cost of living is not
troubling us. Next month's rent may come from where it pleases. It
doesn't bother me."
A messenger turned the angle of the trench and summoned John to the
presence of his commander, Captain Colton, who was about three hundred
yards away. Young Scott, stooping in order to keep his head covered
well, started down the trench. The artillery fire was at its height. The
waves of air followed one another with great violence, and the fumes of
picric acid and of other acids that he did not know became very strong.
But he scarcely noticed it. The bombardment was all in the day's work,
and when the Germans ceased, the French, after a decent interval, would
begin their own cannonade, carried on at equal length.
John thought little of the fire of the guns, now almost a regular affair
like the striking of a clock, but force of habit kept his head down and
no German sharpshooter watching in the trench opposite had a chance at
him. He advanced through a vast burrow. Trenches ran parallel, and other
trenches cut across them. One could wander through them for miles. Most
of them were uncovered, but others had roofs, partial or complete, of
thatch or boards or canvas. Many had little alcoves and shelves, dug out
by the patient hands of the soldiers, and these niches contained their
most precious belongings.
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