There was nothing monotonous
about it but the blackness of darkness. To the touch it was a
_paysage accidente_, a landscape full of surprises. Dead bodies
were sprinkled over it. It was pockmarked with small shell-holes
and pitted with large craters, many of them full of water, all slimy
with mud. Phipps-Herrick nearly slipped into one of the deepest, but
a lively kick warned his followers of the danger, and they pulled
him back by the heels.
Now and then a star-shell looped across the spongy sky, casting a
lurid illumination over the ghastly field. When the three travellers
caught the soft swish of its ascent, they "froze"--motionless as
a shamming 'possum--mimicking death among the dead.
It was a long, slow, silent, revolting crawl. Sounds which did
not concern them were plenty--distant cannonade, shells exploding
here and there, scattered rifle-shots. All these they unconsciously
eliminated, listening for something else, ears pressed to the ground
wherever they could find a comparatively dry spot. From their
point of hearing the night was still as the grave--no subterranean
tapping and scraping could they hear anywhere under the sea of
mud.
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