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Searchlights begin to sweep the black sky. They skim across it like huge blackboard pointers[98], tapering down at the bottom. One of them pauses, shaking a little. At once another is beside it, they cross and there is a black, winged insect trapped and trying to escape: an airman. He wavers, is dazzled and falls.

We ram the iron posts in firmly at set intervals. There are always two men holding the roll while the others pay out the barbed-wire. It is that horrible wire with a lot of long spikes, close together. I am out of practice at paying it out, and rip my hand open.

After a few hours we have finished. But there is still some time before the trucks are due. Most of us lie down and sleep. I try to as well, but it is too cold. You can tell that we are not far from the sea, because you are always waking up from the cold.

At one point I do fall into a deep sleep. When I wake up suddenly with a jolt, I have no idea where I am. I see the stars and I see the rockets, and just for a moment I imagine that I have fallen asleep in the garden at home, during a fireworks party of some sort. I don’t know whether it is morning or evening, and I lie there in the pale cradle of dawn waiting for the gentle words which must surely come, gentle and comforting – am I crying? I put my hand to my face; it is baffling, am I a child? Smooth skin – it only lasts for a second and then I recognize the silhouette of Katczinsky. He is sitting there quite calmly, old soldier that he is, smoking his pipe – one of those with a fid over the bowl, of course. When he sees that I am awake he says, ‘That made you jump. It was only a detonator, it whizzed off into the bushes over there.’

I sit up; I feel terribly alone. It is good that Kat is there. He looks thoughtfully at the front and says, ‘Lovely fireworks. If only they weren’t so dangerous.’

A shell lands behind us. A couple of the new recruits jump up in fright. A few minutes later another shell comes over, closer than before. Kat knocks out his pipe. ‘Here we go.’