Harry listened to the noise of their boots on the wet boards. He put his head down and his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat. They had been told that the line ahead had been hairy up until a couple of months back, as the French tried to take the woods. The landscape testified to it. The roads behind were churned and cratered. The village was all ruins. There was no noise of guns ahead now, though. The only sound was the dripping of water and the wet tramp of their boots.

“Thus we nobly slithered into battle,” said Pembridge under his breath.

The sky above was wide and gray. They had left behind the last signs of the village and there was nothing to navigate by now; no hills or trees or roof timbers broke into the peripheries of their vision. There was just the high earth walls, a funnel of sky, and Wilkinson’s pack in front with its swinging mess tin.

“Mind, now.” Bartley’s voice came from up ahead.

Part of the trench wall had collapsed, a small landslide spilling across their path. They clambered over it, complaining as their feet sank into the waterlogged earth. Harry felt the cold seep into his boots.

“They’re falling in with the thaw,” said Jones.

Earth was sliding from either side. In front, the bottom of the trench was a line of winter sky and feet splashing through it.

“The whole thing is crumbling,” said Wilkinson. “It’s all going to fall apart.”

It came over their boots, to their ankles, creeping up their calves. The water was sharply cold. Harry watched the first raindrops spatter in Wilkinson’s mess tin. His own movements, reflected in the metal, were the color of mud. They discussed the efficaciousness of various patent embrocations, to pass the time, and speculated as to whether they would all have pneumonia by the morning.

“Goose grease is the only thing.”

“I’d rather have the roast goose.”

“Right now I’d gladly sell my wife if I could buy a hot bath with the proceeds.”

“I’ve seen your wife. They might let you have the hot water free out of sympathy.”

The line was moving slowly now. It was like walking up a stream at first, but now the stream had thickened and was rising. It had turned to a heavy sludge. They took difficult, careful, deliberate footsteps. It sucked and pulled, as if the landscape itself were now against them, wanting to drag them down. The enemy was forgotten. They stumbled and swore and the struggle now was to stay upright. Harry’s hands pushed into the earth walls on either side. The walls oozed water and fell away. Each step was an effort.

“What’s going on?”

Ahead, the men had stopped.

“It’s a bog,” said Pembridge. “It’s like a trap.”

“Is there a way around?” asked Bartley.

“Like climb over the top?”

“Or build a boat?”