“Wilibald’s not a dasher,” said he. “He’s a regular Hun. Probably has some rule about not firing unless he can see half the head he’s aiming at. ‘Shoot to kill’ is his motto. Useful man, Wilibald. I wonder if his company commander appreciates him.”
After passing along the trench and warning its garrison not to give unnecessary targets, Red went a round of his observers. They were stationed at loopholes and in O.P.s.
“Keep a good look-out, and try to spot Wilibald if he fires again. The light will be pretty good when the sun works round behind us.”
“Which part of the trench do you think he is in, sir?” asked a lance-corporal.
“Don’t know; perhaps not in the trench at all. Some of the Royal ——shires thought he was in the spinney, and some thought he was in the willow-trees. He got twelve of them. He must be dealt with.”
“Yes, sir,” said the lance-corporal optimistically.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon when Red, having passed down an old disused trench in the rear of the British position, crawled cautiously out behind the parados. Here was an area seamed with shell holes, each half-full of green, scummy water, little piles of rotting sandbags, rusty wire, nettles, and coarse grass. About fifty yards behind the front line a heavy shell had fallen almost on the top of the almost imperceptible rise which culminated at that point. This shell hole was Red’s objective, for from it he could, he knew, get a fair view of the German trenches. It was not a safe place to visit in the morning, when the sun was behind the German lines, and everything in the British stood out clearly to their Zeiss glasses; but in the afternoon the position was reversed, and the Hun observers were in their turn looking into the sun.
To this place Red made his way. It was long before the days of snipers’ robes of canvas, painted yellow and green and black, which for such work would have been useful, though the earlier patterns, cut like a greatcoat, were difficult to crawl in. Later a pattern of overall shape was issued, which gave free play to the knees; but, as we say, such issues were not yet “available.”
At length, Red reached the shell hole, and slowly made a place for his telescope among the clods of earth upon the crater-lip. Then he bent himself to a careful study of the scene.
The line of the German trenches was marked in white, for it was a somewhat chalky country, with here and there loophole plates sticking gauntly up on the top of the parapet. To these Red gave no attention. Many of them were dummies; the danger-spots, he knew, were set lower; often upon the ground level, where, through some gap in the rusty wire, the German sniper’s eyes watched ceaselessly for a “target.” Very carefully Red examined the German trenches. Well he knew their appearance. One by one he picked up the familiar landmarks; here a machine gun emplacement, there a suspected sniper’s post. All was quiet. Once a sentry fired, and the bullet hummed like a bee high above him. Next, Red turned more to the business in hand—the location of Wilibald. No easy business, since there was a great divergence of opinion. He had been located so often; in a sniping-post by the black sandbags—for at one point in the Hun trenches there were a number of black sandbags; the Germans used all colours on that front. Red turned his glass on that point. Yes, there seemed to be a post there, but there was nothing to prove that it was tenanted. Then he tried the spinney; but neither the third tree nor the fifth yielded up any secret. Then the ruined house or hovel; after that, the wide expanse of No Man’s Land. As he watched, Red remembered the words of the Corps Commander: “There is no No Man’s Land. It must be our land right up to the enemy trenches.” That was an ideal to live up to. But stare now as he would, and as he continued to do for an hour, he saw nothing, could see nothing of Wilibald. Broken wire, shell holes, sandbags, pulverized bricks and mortar, men lying in queer positions, men whose ragged tunics the evening wind stirred strangely, men who would never move again.