Presently they came to another turn in the gully. Here there was a deep depression, and they had to wade through water and mud up to their knees. They were now getting closer to the German machine-gun nest, and Dave motioned to his men to increase their caution and for each of them to hold a hand-grenade ready for use.
At last they reached a point where it seemed impossible to go any further. A shell had exploded in that vicinity and completely blocked the gully. To advance farther would mean that they would have to crawl out of the depression and around a small hill of dirt and sand left by the exploded shell.
“I don’t know whether we can reach that machine-gun nest from here or not,” Dave whispered to the others.
“What’s the matter with going over the top after that nest?” demanded Roger.
“Do you want to do it?” questioned Dave quickly, turning to all of those under him.
“Sure! Let us go over!” was the whispered answer. Not an engineer wanted to hold back.
With more caution than ever Dave peeped out among the rocks and calculated what might be the chances for success. While he was doing this he made another discovery, which was to the effect that while they had been slowly crawling up the gully another machine-gun of the Germans had been located almost side by side with the first. Both guns were popping away constantly, and evidently doing considerable damage.
“If they should turn their guns this way it would be all up with us,” said the young sergeant. “So if we show ourselves we’ll be taking our lives in our hands.”
“Well, what of it? Come on!”
“Don’t let us waste any more time. Those guns must be doing terrible damage to our fellows.”