"In some places right along here only about twenty meters," was the startling answer.
"Great Cæsar! Only about sixty-five feet!" murmured Don.
The thought of being in such close proximity to the Germans thrilled and awed the aviator's son.
As the boys, after nodding a good-bye to the officer, tramped along the "duck walk," or slatted wooden flooring of the trench, they rather marveled at the seeming indifference of the silent soldiers whom they here and there encountered lounging idly about. None of them seemed to be paying the slightest attention to the projectiles. Turning into one of the front-line trenches, they found the blue-uniformed soldiers of France on the alert. Many of them were standing on a narrow little platform about a foot from the bottom of the excavation known as the "firing step." Some gazed earnestly through trench periscopes; others had their rifles resting across sand-bags or through openings in the breastworks. Still others held hand-grenades, ready to throw on the instant, while laid out within easy reach were rows of these deadly weapons.
The ambulanciers, slowly following the ramifications of the trench, discovered dugouts all along the rear wall, or parados, as it is called. These excavations were, of course, located to one side of the trenches and immediately below.
After traveling for some distance Don and Dunstan came upon another roofed-over observation post in which a young soldier was stationed. Beside him stood a mitrailleuse, its polished muzzle pointing straight ahead.
A curious uncanny silence hovered over the trench; no one was speaking; no one seemed to be paying any attention to the appearance of the Americans in their midst—all were playing the game of waiting with the utmost alertness. For that was the line which was guarding France from the invader; and probably graven in the heart of every soldier were the words made famous at Verdun:
"Ils ne passeront pas"—"They shall not pass."
"Sixty-five feet—sixty-five feet!" murmured Don, over and over again.
It scarcely seemed possible that only such a short distance beyond the parapet of the trench there were other grimly silent men standing side by side and perhaps having as their battle cry the slogan: