About midnight
More weariness bends our spines again , more obscurity hums in our heads . By following the bed of a valley , we have found trenches again , and then men . These splayed and squelched alleys , with their fat and sinking sandbags , their props which rot like limbs , flow into wider pockets where activity prevails -- battalion H.Q. , or dressing-stations . About midnight we saw , through the golden line of a dugout 's half-open door , some officers seated at a white table -- a cloth or a map . Some one cries , `` They 're lucky ! '' The company officers are exposed to dangers as we are , but only in attacks and reliefs . We suffer long .