fire step

• firestep

fire step (plural fire steps)

1. (military, chiefly historical) A step or platform dug into the front side of a military trench - allowing soldiers to stand on it in order to fire over the parapet.
   • 1917, Arthur Guy Empey, Over The Top:

     We stood on the fire step with our heads over the top, peering out into No Man's Land.

   • 1929, Frederic Manning, The Middle Parts of Fortune, Vintage, published 2014, page 101:

     ‘One o' the men on the firestep was 'urt too, but they said it was only a nice blighty one.’

   • 1991, Pat Barker, Regeneration (The Regeneration Trilogy), Penguin, published 2014, page 140:

     They spread the lime together, sprinkling it thickly along the firestep, throwing shovelfuls at a bad patch of wall.