"Coal-box," said Courtenay hurriedly. "Come on. They're apt to drop
some more about the same spot."
"I'm with you," said Rawbon. "The same spot is a good one to quit, I
reckon."
They hurried, slipping and floundering, along the wet trench, and
turned at last into another zig-zag one where a step ran along one
side, and men muffled in wet coats stood behind a loopholed parapet.
Along the trench was a series of tiny shelters scooped out of the bank,
built up with sand-bags, covered ineffectually with wet, shiny,
waterproof ground-sheets. In these, men were crouched over scantily
filled braziers, or huddled, curled up like homeless dogs on a
doorstep. At intervals along the parapet men watched through periscopes
hoisted over the top edge, and every now and then one fired through a
loophole. The trench bottom where they walked was anything from ankle- to
knee-deep in evil-looking watery mud of the consistency of very thin
porridge. The whole scene, the picture of wet misery, the dirt and
squalor and discomfort made Rawbon shiver as much from disgust as from
the raw cold that clung about the oozing clay walls and began to bite
through to his soaking feet and legs. Courtenay stopped near a group of
men, and telling the sergeant to wait there a moment, moved on and left
him.
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