The drill was over. We went back along the path toward the road.
Behind the storehouse the evening meal was preparing in a shed. The
battery was to have a new ration that night for a change, bacon and
codfish. Potatoes were being pared into a great kettle and there was a
bowl of eggs on a stand. It appeared to me, accustomed to the meagre
ration of the Belgians, that the French were dining well that night on
the plains of Ypres.
In a stable near at hand a horse whinnied. I patted him as I passed,
and he put his head against my shoulder.
"He recognises you!" said Captain Boisseau. "He too is American."
It was late afternoon by that time. The plan to reach the advanced
trenches was frustrated by an increasing fusillade from the front.
There were barbed-wire entanglements everywhere, and every field was
honeycombed with trenches. One looked across the plain and saw
nothing. Then suddenly as we advanced great gashes cut across the
fields, and in these gashes, although not a head was seen, were men.
The firing was continuous. And now, going down a road, with a line of
poplar trees at the foot and the setting sun behind us throwing out
faint shadows far ahead, we saw the flash of water. It was very near.
It was the flooded river and the canal. Beyond, eight hundred yards or
less from where we stood, were the Germans.
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