Many a boy was pale and sick that day, in spite of the encouraging calm or the biting jests of the veterans.

The strange sighings in the air became more numerous and more urgent.

Now and then bits of twigs and boughs and leaves came sifting down, cut by invisible shears, and now and then a sapling jarred with the thud of an unseen blow.

The long line in the trenches moved and twisted restlessly.
In front of the trenches were other regiments, out ahead in the woods, unseen, somewhere toward that place whence came the steadiest jarring of artillery and the loudest rattling of the lesser arms.

It was very hard to lie and listen, to imagine, to suspect, to dread.