Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IN THE TRENCHES CHAPTER III IN THE TRENCHES WE started for the village of Beth- eny, which lies in front of Rheims, like an island in a sea of fire, joined to the city by three kilometers of long, winding communication trenches or boyaux. Gradually the houses thinned out; marks of recent bombardments began to appear—a wall rent asunder, a heap of stones prone across our path. The cannonading approached nearer, w,ith a new, personal significance. We saw no more civilians, but instead, at every corner, sentinels carefully masked. The broad highway to Betheny lay straight ahead and deserted. Even before we left the outskirts of Rheims, we had disappeared into a protecting boyau. About six feet deep at first,it continued to sink into the yellow, oozing earth, until the top soil rose above our heads. Sprays of clover, coarse grasses with occasional ruddy splashes of poppies, brushed our faces, as we traveled as the insects travel, our feet splashing through occasional pools of water, the boyau turning and twisting, wriggling on in serpentine coils. "Why don't they run straight ahead?" I asked. Captain X., who took a military delight in enjoying the sensations of civilians, called back cheerily: "It winds so that if a shell lands in the boyau it can't get more than a few—some of us will get out." This was a great comfort and we passed the word back. The boyau led through mounds and cellars, out through the last refuse heaps, and once in the open country, deepened and widened. We were eight feet below the highway, running parallel to it, always in a snaky, twisting course. By our side the trees that lined the road were barked and split, broken and twisted by shells, the foliage singed by the iron passage. We crossed under railroad ties and fell into a maze of a...