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The Belgian trenches are very much like those on other sectors of the Western Front, except that they are made of sand-bags instead of earth, are muddier and are nearer the enemy, being separated from the German positions, for a considerable distance, only by the Yser, which in places is only forty yards across.
Marta gave intermittent glances at the garden; the glances of a guardian. She happened to be looking in that direction when figures sprang across the road, crouching, running with the short, quick steps of no body movement accompanying that of the legs. The search-light caught them in merciless silhouette and the automatic and the rifles from behind the sand-bags on the first terrace let go.
The laborers formerly employed by Captain Foster were again hired by the State engineers, and were kept at work thereafter, night and day, in piling up sand-bags to shield the troops from the fire of Fort Sumter.
Those men of the 3d Division the "Iron Division," as it was called later in the war remained in a hideous turmoil of wet earth up by the Bluff until other men came to relieve them and take over this corner of hell. What remained of the trenches was deep in water and filthy mud, where the bodies of many dead Germans lay under a litter of broken sand-bags and in the holes of half-destroyed dugouts.
Placing themselves under cover from the shots of the enemy, the men would watch to detect a head above the sand-bags on the neighboring houses. The exposure of a single head would bring a volley from our soldiers. We had not occupied this position long when it was discovered that our ammunition was growing low. We were at this time occupying ground off from the street, in rear of the houses.
Everything portable has been removed to a place of safety, but the famous mosaics, the ancient windows, and the splendid carvings it is impossible to remove, and they are the most precious of all. The two pulpits of colored marbles and the celebrated screen with its carven figures are now hidden beneath pyramids of sand-bags.
So they take us to their barrack, a large farm-house, and thence to "the front." To the latter spot our coachman declines driving, as his horses are not bullet-proof, and the enemy is not warranted to abstain from firing during our visit. So, proceeding on foot, we reach a low breastwork of sand-bags, with an orchard in advance of it.
On the preservation of that post depended the whole fortune of the day, for Parma had already received the welcome intelligence that the Palisade now Fort Victory had been regained. He instantly ordered an outer breast-work of wool-sacks and sand-bags to be thrown up in front of Saint George, and planted a battery to play point-blank at the enemy's entrenchments.
Darkness now crept over the battlefield and filled the trenches, and in the darkness the wounded men were carried back to the rear, while those who had escaped worked hard to strengthen their defenses by sand-bags and earthworks, knowing that their only chance of life lay in fierce industry.
Having plenty of canvas and spars, they also fitted a square sail; some sand-bags served for ballast, although the stores they intended to take would reader them at first unnecessary. Tom had, however, half a dozen spare ones made, which could be filled from the beach of any island at which they might touch, as their stores became exhausted. Altogether the craft was made thoroughly seaworthy.
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