A little farther they meet a sentry who is half asleep—in the middle of the evening—on a heap of loose earth. The drowsy soldier says, "It's to the right, and then again to the right, and then straight forward. Don't go wrong about it."
They march—for a long time. "We must have come a long way," says Volpatte, after half an hour of fruitless paces and encloistered loneliness.
"I say, we're going downhill a hell of a lot, don't you think?" asks Blaire.
"Don't worry, old duffer," scoffs Pepin, "but if you've got cold feet you can leave us to it."
Still we tramp on in the falling night. The ever-empty trench—a desert of terrible length—has taken a shabby and singular appearance. The parapets are in ruins; earthslides have made the ground undulate in hillocks.
An indefinite uneasiness lays hold of the four huge fire-hunters, and increases as night overwhelms them in this monstrous road.
Pepin, who is leading just now, stands fast and holds up his hand as a signal to halt. "Footsteps," they say in a sobered tone.
Then, and in the heart of them, they are afraid. It was a mistake for them all to leave their shelter for so long. They are to blame. And one never knows.
"Get in there, quick, quick!" says Pepin, pointing to a right-angled cranny on the ground level.
By the test of a hand, the rectangular shadow is proved to be the entry to a funk-hole. They crawl in singly; and the last one, impatient, pushes the others; they become an involuntary carpet in the dense darkness of the hole.