A short time later, the peat holes grew scarcer.
“West!”
There were the slimy patches again! We went around a few. Most of them we crossed in a bee-line. They seemed firmer here. A few much smaller sheets of water! Then again a flat, unbroken, springy surface.
We were all going strong, out to make westing as fast as we could put our feet to the ground; no thought, now, of crouching.
A barbed wire, behind it a deep, wide ditch, beyond that a plowed field, were in front of us.
The human mind is a queer contrivance. We had just negotiated some rather ugly ground. We had not bothered about, hardly become aware of, the risks we had taken. Now we were hesitating for a few moments in front of a ditch with firm sides which, at the worst, we could easily have waded. At last we jumped, landing in the water half-way up to our knees. I lost my precious aluminium water-bottle there. Then across the field, across another ditch, and so four times.
On the way I asked Tynsdale: “Nothing to remark about our course?”
“I thought you altered it, and swung due west at one point.”
“Yes, after the shots.”