]
The following day started as the first, but in the middle of the
afternoon the telephone system of our sector was demolished by rifle and
it was impossible to get into communication with either the headquarters
or the trenches.
"That stops work for today!" the officer told me. "No more gun fire till
we get it fixed."
I can remember asking anxiously what we could do.
"Nothing just this minute," he laughed at my eagerness, "but tonight you
and I will crawl out on our bellies and find that broken wire. Then we
will fix it, and unless they find us with a shell we'll crawl back."
[Sidenote: We go out to mend the wire.]
The prospect was exciting, and I waited anxiously for night. Then, armed
with the necessary tools, we started to crawl along the trench
containing the wires. We had no light, we could not stand upright. We
went about a half mile, feeling every inch of wire for the break, and
then suddenly I ran my hand along the wire that suddenly came to a
point. We had found the break.
"I've got it," I called in my best whisper, but before I could receive a
reply there was a noise from the German trenches.
"Star shell, star shell," my French companion called excitedly.
[Sidenote: A star shell bursts above us.]
Suddenly the shell burst above us, and it was more brilliant than day.
Frightened! Say, that light is so great and the knowledge that if the
Germans spot you you're a goner, makes you just lie there and forget to
breathe! It does not take many seconds for a star shell to die away to a
glow, but in those seconds you go right through life and back to the
present.
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