It is already four o’clock.  Darkness is falling quickly, and we grow indistinct to each other.  “Damnation.  Here’s the rain!” A few drops and then the downpour.  Oh, la, la, la!  We don our capes and tent-cloths.  We go back unto the dug-out, dabbling, and gathering mud on our knees, hands, and elbows, for the bottom of the trench is getting sticky.  Once inside, we have hardly time to light a candle, stuck on a bit of stone, and to shiver all round—­“Come on, en route!”

We hoist ourselves into the wet and windy darkness outside.  I can dimly see Poterloo’s powerful shoulders; in the ranks we are always side by side.  When we get going I call to him, “Are you there, old chap?”—­“Yes, in front of you,” he cries to me, turning round.  As he turns he gets a buffet in the face from wind and rain, but he laughs.  His happy face of the morning abides with him.  No downpour shall rob him of the content that he carries in his strong and steadfast heart; no evil night put out the sunshine that I saw possess his thoughts some hours ago.

We march, and jostle each other, and stumble.  The rain is continuous, and water runs in the bottom of the trench.  The floor-gratings yield as the soil becomes soaked; some of them slope to right or left and we skid on them.  In the dark, too, one cannot see them, so we miss them at the turnings and put our feet into holes full of water.

Even in the grayness of the night I will not lose sight of the slaty shine of Poterloo’s helmet, which streams like a roof under the torrent, nor of the broad back that is adorned with a square of glistening oilskin.  I lock my step in his, and from time to time I question him and he answers me—­always in good humor, always serene and strong.

When there are no more of the wooden floor-gratings, we tramp in the thick mud.  It is dark now.  There is a sudden halt and I am thrown on Poterloo.  Up higher we hear half-angry reproaches—­“What the devil, will you get on?  We shall get broken up!”

“I can’t get my trotters unstuck!” replies a pitiful voice.

The engulfed one gets clear at last, and we have to run to overtake the rest of the company.  We begin to pant and complain, and bluster against those who are leading.  Our feet go down haphazard; we stumble and hold ourselves up by the wails, so that our hands are plastered with mud.  The march becomes a stampede, full of the noise of metal things and of oaths.

In redoubled rain there is a second halt; some one has fallen, and the hubbub is general.  He picks himself up and we are off again.  I exert myself to follow Poterloo’s helmet closely that gleams feebly in the night before my eyes, and I shout from time to time, “All right?”—­“Yes, yes, all right,” he replies, puffing and blowing, and his voice always singsong and resonant.

Our knapsacks, tossed in this rolling race under the assault of the elements, drag and hurt our shoulders.