The night air on every side of us was full of strange sound. It was not
loud nor near, but it was there all the time. We could hear it even
while we talked and above the sound of our footsteps on the cobbles of
the long French highway. Ahead of us, and far on either side, came this
continuous distant rattle. It was the sound of innumerable wagons
carrying up over endless cobble stones the food and ammunition for
another day.

A cart clattered past from the front with the jingle of trace chains and
hammer of metal tyres upon stones. So one driver had finished his job
for the night. Farther on was a sound of voices and a chink of spades;
some way to our left across a field we can make out dark figures--they
may be stunted willows along the far hedge, or they may be a working
party going up, with their spades and picks over their shoulders, to
one of those jobs which in this flat country can only be done by night.

Twenty miles behind the lines, or more, you can see every night along
the horizon in front of you a constant low flicker of light--the flares
thrown up by both sides over the long ribbon of No Man's Land--the
ribbon which straggles without a break from one end of France to the
other. We were getting very close to that barrier now--within a couple
of miles of it; and the pure white stars of these glorified Roman
candles were describing graceful curves behind a fretwork of trees an
inch or two above the horizon. Every five or six seconds a rifle cracked
somewhere along the line--very different from the ceaseless pecking of
Gallipoli. Then a distant German machine-gun started its sprint,
stumbled, went on again, tripped again. A second machine-gun farther
down the line caught it up, and the two ran along in perfect step for a