Finlayson and Mucksweat heard a vast rush as of wings above their heads; saw Peter scramble over the parapet; followed him blind in a mad stumbling run. The three dropped in a panting heap to earth.
“So far, so good,” gasped Peter, extricating his head from Finlayson’s legs. He hauled himself on his elbows up the side of the crater; looked over. A hundred yards in front of him, a row of helmets marked the front line. Beyond these billowed a roaring wall of flame-spangled smoke. Above the wall, red and green rockets soared despairingly. Shells whistled over him towards the wall—a stream of shells—ceaseless. And always the wall billowed higher, blurring the rockets. Now, the helmets rose from the ground, became men—a long line of men who walked slowly towards the flaming wall, lay down at foot of it. Sunk-road, chalk-pits, desert beyond, skyline—everything had disappeared. Peter could see only the wall, the wall and the prone figures at foot of it.
Suddenly, flame died out in the wall: the prone figures rose; flung themselves forward into the smoke. . . . From behind the smoke came the sharp reports of bombs bursting, little whickers of machine-gun fire. . . . The wall thinned, revealing the sunk road, glimmer of chalk-mounds, of shapes struggling with shapes. . . . But beyond the struggling shapes, other shapes moved forward with the moving smoke. . . .
Peter called over his shoulder, “Come on, you chaps, we’ve got ’em.” The three rose to their feet, dashed downhill. As they ran, they were unconscious of everything except the one strong desire to get forward. All about them, from the edges of Trônes Wood, from Arrowhead Copse, other men were running; men moved by that same desire; men equally unconscious, in that one moment of supreme elation, of the enemy barrage that screamed over their heads, plunged to ground in bolts of flame behind them. . . .
Finlayson reached the old front line first; stumbled as he leaped; fell headlong. Peter and Mucksweat, slowing their pace, scrambled deliberately across; helped the Bombardier to his feet. For a second they looked back. “You were right about that shell-hole, sir,” gasped Finlayson. “They’re knocking hell out of the supports.”
“Come on,” said Peter. “They’ll be barraging the sunk road next.” . . .
He set off at a swift walk; scrambled up a bank; dropped down, the pair of them at his heels.
In the sodden roadway, between the bloodstained chalk, the killers were still at work; ferreting the Beast with bombs, braining him as he crawled from his hole. The place stank of cordite, of blood and the flesh of men. But the three gunners had not been sent out to kill. . . . Peter, scrambling first up the chalk-bank, saw a shattered roadway ahead; caught a glimpse of two gigantic chalk-mounds, of the barrage beyond; heard a terrific explosion overhead; felt a clanging hammer-stroke on his helmet, knew frightful pain at his heart; knew a great darkness—a darkness through which he sank to merciful oblivion. . . .
Mucksweat and Finlayson, blown back by the shell, looked at each other for one panting second. Then they scrambled up the bank.
Peter had fallen forward on his face, left arm doubled beneath him. There was a great dent as from a hammer in his helmet. They turned him over. He gave no sign of life. Blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. “Is he dead?” asked Mucksweat.