At length he stopped before a small mound of earth not in any way distinctive at a short distance on the uneven surface of the plateau. I did not even notice that there were three other such mounds. He pointed to a hole in the ground. I had been used to going through a manhole in a battleship turret, but not through one into a field-gun position before aeroplanes played a part in war.
“Entrez, monsieur!”
And I stepped down to face the breech of a gun whose muzzle pointed out of another hole in the timbered roof covered with earth.
“It’s very cosy!” I remarked.
“Oh, this is the shop! The living-room is below—here!”
I descended a ladder into a cellar ten feet below the gun level, where some of the gunners were lying on a thick carpet of perfectly dry straw.
“You are not doing much firing these days?” I suggested.
“Oh, we gave the Boches a couple this morning so they wouldn’t get cocky thinking they were safe. It’s necessary to keep your hand in even in the winter.”
“Don’t you get lonesome?”
“No, we shift on and off. We’re not here all the while. It is quite warm in our salon, monsieur, and we have good comrades. It is war. It is for France. What would you?”