Just then a shell came screaming overhead and the boys involuntarily ducked.
"That seems to prove it," said Tom.
"Bad shooting though," remarked Frank, coolly. "Fritz ought to have the range better by this time."
"There isn't very much of that sort of thing going on just now," remarked Corporal Wilson, who came along just then. "This is what they call a 'quiet sector.' The boys are just put here to be broken in and get used to the sight and sound of the shells. This is a deaf and dumb asylum compared to what you'll get later on."
"Job's comforter," murmured Bart. "To hear the corporal talk you'd think this was a rest cure."
In the hours of liberty allowed them the army boys explored the trenches for a long distance in either direction, and what they saw tended to upset a good many of the notions they had formed.
In a vague way they had figured the trench to be not much else than a gigantic ditch. They found it to be an underground city.
There was a bewildering labyrinth of passages branching off in every direction. There were spacious rooms, fitted up in homely comfort, some with pictures on the walls and rugs upon the floors.
There were shower baths and laundries, rude in construction but efficient in operation. The sleeping quarters of the men consisted chiefly of bunks, rising in tiers, though in some cases, cots were used.
There was an apparently endless series of communicating trenches with the listening posts in advance of the main line. There were telephone wires and electric lights.