The burdens are awkward and heavy.
The ground becomes more broken.
From ahead come warnings:
"Look out, deep shell-hole on the left"—"Mind, trenches"–––
Our eyes peer out, our feet and our sticks feel in front of us before they take the weight of the body.
Suddenly the line halts; I bump my face against the roll of wire carried by the man in front and curse.
There are some shell-smashed lorries in the road.
Another order:
"Cigarettes and pipes out."
We are near the line.
In the meantime it has become pitch dark.
We skirt a small wood and then have the front-line immediately before us.
An uncertain red glow spreads along the skyline from one end to the other.
It is in perpetual movement, punctuated with the bursts of flame from the nozzles of the batteries.
Balls of light rise up high above it, silver and red spheres which explode and rain down in showers of red, white, and green stars.
French rockets go up, which unfold a silk parachute to the air and drift slowly down.
They light up everything as bright as day, their light shines on us and we see our shadows sharply outlined on the ground.
They hover for the space of a minute before they burn out.
Immediately fresh ones shoot up in the sky, and again green, red, and blue stars.
"Bombardment," says Kat.
The thunder of the guns swells to a single heavy roar and then breaks up again into separate explosions.
The dry bursts of the machine-guns rattle.
Above us the air teems with invisible swift movement, with howls, pipings, and hisses.
They are smaller shells;—and amongst them, booming through the night like an organ, go the great coal-boxes and the heavies.
They have a hoarse, distant bellow like a rutting stag and make their way high above the howl and whistle of the smaller shells. It reminds me of flocks of wild geese when I hear them. Last autumn the wild geese flew day after day across the path of the shells.
The searchlights begin to sweep the dark sky.
They slide along it like gigantic tapering rulers.
One of them pauses, and quivers a little.
Immediately a second is beside him, a black insect is caught between them and tries to escape—the airman.
He hesitates, is blinded and falls.
At regular intervals we ram in the iron stakes.
Two men hold a roll and the others spool off the barbed wire.
It is that awful stuff with close-set, long spikes.
I am not used to unrolling it and tear my hand.
After a few hours it is done.
But there is still some time before the lorries come.
Most of us lie down and sleep.
I try also, but it has turned too chilly.
We know we are not far from the sea because we are constantly waked by the cold.
Once I fall fast asleep.
Then wakening suddenly with a start I do not know where I am.
I see the stars, I see the rockets, and for a moment have the impression that I have fallen asleep at a garden fete.
I don't know whether it is morning or evening, I lie in the pale cradle of the twilight, and listen for soft words which will come, soft and near —am I crying?
I put my hand to my eyes, it is so fantastic, am I a child?
Smooth skin;—it lasts only a second, then I recognize the silhouette of Katczinsky.
The old veteran, he sits quietly and smokes his pipe—a covered pipe of course.
When he sees I am awake, he says:
"That gave you a fright.
It was only a nose-cap, it landed in the bushes over there."
I sit up, I feel myself strangely alone.