The embankment loomed shoulder high, and between it and the ditch were
the trenches. There was no sound from them, but sentries halted us
frequently. On such occasions the party stopped abruptly--for here
sentries are apt to fire first and investigate afterward--and one
officer advanced with the password.
There is always something grim and menacing about the attitude of the
sentry as he waits on such occasions. His carbine is not over his
shoulder, but in his hands, ready for use. The bayonet gleams. His
eyes are fixed watchfully on the advance. A false move, and his
overstrained nerves may send the carbine to his shoulder.
We walked just behind the trenches in the moonlight for a mile. No one
said anything. The wind was icy. Across the railroad embankment it
chopped the inundation into small crested waves. Only by putting one's
head down was it possible to battle ahead. From Dixmude came the
intermittent red flashes of guns. But the trenches beside us were
entirely silent.
At the end of a mile we stopped. The road turned abruptly to the right
and crossed the railroad embankment, and at this crossing was the ruin
of what had been the House of the Barrier, where in peaceful times the
crossing tender lived.
It had been almost destroyed. The side toward the German lines was
indeed a ruin, but one room was fairly whole.
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