Every step was as painful to the one as to the other, but the night air was very sweet, and the hope of liberty sweeter.
"This door opens to the east," whispered the Captain. "Consequently, our road lies yonder; and, by Jove! it is a road too! What stunning chaps the British gunners are when they're properly supplied with ammunition!"
"You're quite sure you're right, old man?" said Dennis. "The shells are bursting yonder like one o'clock."
"Exactly!" was Bob's dry rejoinder. "That's the German barrage falling behind our new line. It's about there we shall probably get pipped on the post, brother of mine. That barrage lies between us and safety."
Overhead the shells rushed, clanging, booming, whistling, screeching, according to their different species and calibre; and every now and then a star-shell burst in the sky, lighting everything up for a few seconds in an unearthly brilliance.
"So long as we're between the two fires," said Bob, as they began their perilous journey, "there is nothing much to fear, it seems to me. The next mile is No Man's Land with a vengeance; after that it will be Dante's Inferno with the lid off."
Every time a star-shell burst the fugitives flung themselves on to the ground. After one of those enforced pauses, and before they had covered a quarter of a mile, they rested for quite a considerable time at the edge of an enormous crump-hole, and, Dennis still having his haversack, they divided its contents and ate ravenously.
"I suppose we shall be returned missing," said Bob. "But surely the governor will keep the news back for a day or two on the mater's account. Let's get a move on, old chap; our non-appearance is robbing him of all the satisfaction he'd have got out of a fine day's work." And as they went on again, the Captain using a Mauser rifle which Dennis had picked up as a crutch, he told his brother how completely successful the British advance had been up to the moment when the Reedshires were obliged to fall back. The battalion had lost terribly, but we had taken two villages, and what we had we meant to hold.
At the end of another quarter of a mile they took cover again very suddenly; no star-shell that time, but a very businesslike German high explosive, which scooped up tons of earth, and it was followed by another and another, which all burst in their immediate neighbourhood.
"I say, Bob, this is getting rather serious," said Dennis. "They're shortening their fuses for some reason or other, and we're just in the line of fire. I wish there was a safe spot where we could lie up until we see what it means. What's the matter with that building over there with the broken chimney shaft? The beggars are shelling right and left of it as though they didn't want it to get hit—mean to use it when they counter-attack, I suppose; and if we're questioned, I must pass you off as my prisoner, eh?"