John was glad that the Paris regiment lay so close.
"Nothing is going to happen," said Carstairs.

"Why can't I lay me down on my little muddy shelf and go to sleep?
Nobody would send a dog out on such a night!" "Man will often go where a dog won't," said Wharton, sententiously.
"And the night is growing worse," continued Carstairs.

"Hear that wind howl! Why, it's driving the snow before it in sheets! The trenches won't dry out in a week!" "You might be worth hearing if you'd only quit talking and say something, Carstairs," said Wharton.
"If you obeyed that rule, Wharton, you'd be known as the dumb man." John stood up straight and looked over the trench toward the German lines, where he saw nothing.

The night filled with so much driving snow had become a kind of white gloom, less penetrable than the darkness.
Only that shifting white wall met his gaze, and listen as he would, he could hear nothing.

The feeling of something sinister and uncanny, something vast and mighty returned.