The darkness deepened, and the flares, increasing in number, gave the place an unreal, ghastly light, like some gigantic and unending nightmare. Something that could not be possible, must not be possible, but which was to go on and on and on endlessly, relentlessly.
At last it was black night.
A sergeant made his way along the trench, slipping and sliding through the mud and ooze. He gave commands in muffled whispers, and a number of the exhausted men turned and followed him when he returned to the outlet of the trench. Lying so close to the border of No-Man's-Land, across which it was possible for an occasional spy to invade their trench, the greatest care was taken in every possible way to discover and check such invasion. When there was no firing to cover the sound, the men talked in whispers when they talked at all, which was seldom. The bitter business of war had seemed to strip from them all desire to talk.
They were moving stealthily along when a slight figure bounded into the trench and slid and tumbled to the bottom. He hurried back and forth the length of the trench, then plunged like a human ferret into the small, twisted tunnel that led down and down twenty feet or more underground to the rest house, a scooped-out chamber of clay where there was actual safety unless—unless the tunnel caved! Looking in on the group of wounded and exhausted men who occupied the space, he spoke a name. No one answered. The men paid no attention. They were wholly wrapped up in their own misery. He climbed once more into the trench, then, glancing round to see if he was observed, he scrambled lightly up the side and in another moment was over the top and, flat on the ground, was wriggling a cautious, snake-like way across the horrors of No-Man's-Land.
His heart beat heavily; it seemed as though it could be heard twenty feet away. He was bent on a fearful and almost impossible errand; an errand that might cost him his life. And life was sweet to the boy who proceeded to work his way across the terrible stretch of No-Man's-Land.
He had no reason for going, no plan; simply something told him the direction to take in his strange quest. Every time a flare burst against the murky sky he dropped flat on his face and, assuming some strained, distorted position, lay motionless until the light died out once more. This happened every two minutes or so. It took endless patience to work his way forward. He was impelled to hurry, to take the chance of continuing his course even under the bright light of the flares. But he knew that it would be death to him and possible death to the one he sought. As he wormed his way forward he turned slowly to the right. Stronger and stronger he felt the strange certainty that never failed to tell him that he was right. He was approaching the person whom he sought.
The feeling of coming success buoyed him and gave him courage. He scarcely dared to breathe. Slower and slower he crawled, worming his way along, over and around the horrors in his path. The moments seemed like hours, the hours like days. Finally he came to a huge shell crater. He approached its edge and looked over as a flare, brighter than usual, lit the desolation of No-Man's-Land. And as he looked, a face, mud covered, bruised yet familiar, looked into his. So close were the two faces that they nearly touched. Just for an instant the face in the deep ditch drew back; then two voices, whispering in a low tone, said, "Hello!"
The fellow in the crater sagged wearily against the steep incline of the side of the pit. He looked at the other and sighed a sigh of unutterable relief.
"Gee, I thought you would never come!" he said in a low tone.
"Keep still!" whispered the other, taking the boy below him by the collar and scarcely breathing the words aloud. "Are you hurt?"