"Get down, you asses!" cried an officer, as they drew near to the trenches. "Do you want to be marked?"
They took cover behind a hedge. Kenneth tingled from top to toe as he heard the crash of the guns, and felt the earth and the very air shake with the concussion. Presently a shrill whistle sounded; it was followed almost instantaneously by a prolonged crackle, which had hardly died away when from above them came a zip, zip, zip, like the notes of some tuneless bird.
"The Germans are firing anyhow," said Pariset in an involuntary whisper.
Round the hedge came swiftly two men in blue coats with the red cross on their sleeves, carrying an ambulance. A groan rose from it.
"I can't stand this," said Pariset.
He dashed along the hedge and into the open. Kenneth instinctively followed him, not doubting for a moment what it was that Pariset could not stand. Pariset, with Kenneth close at his heels, made straight for the nearest trench, heedless of the shot and shell whistling, singing, crashing around them. They flung themselves into the trench, and Kenneth, without understanding how it had happened, found himself leaning forward, rifle in hand, listening to a droning monotone from Pariset a yard to the left of him.
"Mark your man.... Don't be in a hurry.... Keep your head as low as possible.... You'll soon get used to the noise."
It was a minute or two before Kenneth realised that the rifle had been thrust into his hand for use. Looking over the parapet of the trench he was still confused and bewildered. Pariset expected him to fire, but where was the enemy? He saw the long grass waving in the breeze, a few scattered trees in the field beyond, wisps and cloudlets of smoke--and then, as the range of his vision increased, in the far distance a bluish-grey mass rolling like a billow towards him.
At last he understood. That bluish-grey mass was the enemy. It represented brute force, broken faith, merciless tyranny. It was the devastating flood which these brave soldiers about him were giving their lives to check.
Presently he distinguished individuals in the mass.