In a sort of dell, on rising ground now, with small copses to right, left, and in front, we halted, removed our boots and emptied them of water, and wrung out our socks and trousers. This was quite necessary. The squirting noise of our steps advertised our presence a long way in the still night.
Here, if I mistake not—it may have been a little later—we arranged the order of our march. I took the van. My task was to pick the way to keep the direction. Kent, next, was to pay particular attention to our nearer surroundings, try to spot danger—sentries and patrols, etc.—and keep count of the time. Every four or five hundred yards he was to signal “down,” when we were to “flop.” By this manœuver we would contract the horizon and, perhaps, spot sentries against the sky-line. Tynsdale, in the rear, was to check the direction, and speak, if he saw me apparently make a wrong move. All of us were to keep our eyes wide open and all senses on the alert.
When we topped the rise we sank down silently. There was the first road, across our course, hardly discernible on the black, flat expanse. Nothing moved; no sound, except that of our own breathing, disturbed the stillness. Obliquely across some fields we came to the second road.
Again we crouched. “All’s well. Go on.”
After that, a smooth, very springy surface made agreeable walking for a short time.
“Hou—” I started.
“Houses to left and right in front!” whispered Kent. Again we looked and listened.
They were two small single structures, standing perhaps three hundred yards apart, as if dropped from a giant child’s play-box. When I had led through the space between, a path was found to run past them.
Now began the swamp proper, as flat and as black, at first, as a congealed lake of asphalt, covered with the same exceedingly short growth we had already encountered, like very tiny heather plants, or their densely intertwined roots, and very springy with the concealed bog underneath.