One can stand on the parapet, where, two hours afterwards, he would be
pierced like a sieve.
It gives one a very curious sensation to go several steps in front of
the trench, over the snow, to reconnoitre the terrain ahead of us.
And it is quite different to inspect this sombre place which we always
see through a periscope, not knowing what it really is.
Dead boughs and leaves crackle under our feet while we move with care.
There is a zig-zag path in the wire entanglement right in front of
us----
In a hollow in the terrain we discover a German corpse, or more
precisely, a skeleton dressed in an infantryman's uniform, a rusty
rifle at his side--that is the thing in question.