Chapter Thirty Eight.
“Hear that?”
It was still dark, but there were faint suggestions of the coming day when Pen began to creep in the direction of a black patch which he felt must be forest.
This promised shelter; but he had first to thread his way amongst the wounded who lay sleeping around, and his difficulty was to avoid touching them, for they apparently lay thickest in the direction he had chosen.
Before he was aware of what he was doing he had laid his inert right hand upon an outstretched arm, which was drawn back with a sharp wince, and its owner uttered a groan. Bearing to the left and whispering to Punch to take care, Pen crept on, to find himself almost in contact with another sufferer, who said something incoherently; and then a whisper from Punch checked his companion.
“Come on,” said Pen hastily, “or they will give the alarm.”
“Not they, poor chaps! They are too bad. That sentry isn’t coming, is he?”
Pen glanced in the man’s direction, but he was not visible, for some low bushes intervened.
“I can’t see him,” said Pen.
“Then look here, comrade; now’s our time. It’s all fair in war. Every man for himself.”