"'I'll be dead, probably,' he said, 'and if I'm not and you kill me, then it's only five minutes' difference, anyway.
"'Then, when it's night, let some of the fellows go out and drag me in. I've got an indelible pencil, and you'll find a map of the trenches on my chest.'"
"Did he go?"
"He did," the veteran answered. "We watched close all that night, all the next day and all the next night, till we were sure that he had been nabbed.
"Then, suddenly, one of our chaps called,
"'Here he comes!'
"Sure enough, just as it was getting light enough to see, a figure dressed like a Boche came jumping out of the trench holding his left arm stretched out straight and began a bolt across No Man's Land. He was running like a hare, but three or four rifles spoke. He dropped, wounded, and began to crawl, inch by inch, to our lines. Then they got a machine-gun full on him and began to spray him with bullets, like you sprinkle a flower-bed in summer.
"He didn't wriggle very far.
"We answered them hot and heavy. We didn't leave room for a worm to crawl up to him, much less a man. Then, when night came, some of our fellows drove a sap to where he lay and hooked down the body."
"And the map?"