He stood trying to pierce the thickening mist, looking as nearly as he could judge straight upward in the course they had taken, and was about to start: but, not satisfied, he took out his match-box, struck a light, and, holding it down, sought for the marks made by the bayonets in the climb. But there was no sign where he stood, neither was there to his left; and, taking a few paces to the right, with the rapidly-burning match close to the snow, the flame was just reaching his fingers when he uttered a sigh of satisfaction: for, as the light had to be dropped, there, one after the other, he saw two marks in the freshly-chipped snow glistening in the faint light. Keeping their direction fresh in his mind, he stalled upward on his search.
“How far did I come down?” he said to himself. “I reckon ’bout a hundred yards. Say ’undred and twenty steps.”
He went on taking the hundred and twenty paces, and then he stopped short.
“Must be close here somewhere,” he muttered; and he paused to listen, but there was not a sound.
“Nobody couldn’t hear me up here,” he thought, and he called his companion by name, to rouse up strange echoes from close at hand; and when he changed to whistling, the echoes were sudden and startling in the extreme.
“It’s rum,” said Gedge. “He was just in front of me, one minute talking to me, and then ‘Ha!’ he says, and he was gone.”
Gedge took off his helmet, and wiped his wet brow again before replacing it.
“Ugh, you idjit!” he muttered. “You were right at first. He dropped down in a sort o’ fit from overdoing it—one as took him all at wunst, and he’s lying somewheres about fast asleep, as people goes off in the snow and never wakes again. He’s lying close by here somewheres, and you ought to have done fust what you’re going to do last.
“Mustn’t forget where I left you,” he muttered as he gave a dig down with his rifle, driving the bayonet into the snow, and sending some scraps flying with a curious whispering noise which startled him.
“What does that mean?” he said, and he caught at the butt of his piece, now sticking upward in the snow, but dropped his hand again to his pocket and again took out his match-box.