“Understand. Loophole to be closed till 5.15 a.m. Then to be opened by you cautiously, and from one side. I shall be out in the shell hole behind the parados.”
Half an hour later Red crouched in the shell hole, his telescope discarded, since its field of view was too narrow. In front of him lay his watch, which he had synchronized with that of Corporal Hogg. The hand marked 5.11. The moments passed. Red’s heart was beating now. He glanced—a last glance, a very hurried glance—at his watch. It was past the fourteen minutes! Hogg would be opening the loophole.
Bang!
A shot had rung out. From the garden—or what was once the garden—of the razed house, not seventy yards distant, a little wisp of gas floated away to the cold morning star. Very cautiously Red wrapped a bit of sandbag round his telescope, and pushed it on the little plot of turnips.
At first he saw nothing.
Then he was aware of some turnip-tops moving, when all the rest were still. A moment later he had made out the top of Wilibald’s head, garlanded with turnip-tops, and the upper part of Wilibald’s large German face. This, then, was the explanation of the accurate shooting and the long death-roll. Wilibald had been firing at short range.
Red felt it was almost uncanny.
Hitherto, in trench warfare, as far as daylight was concerned, the Huns had seemed to him almost an abstraction, creatures apparent to the sense of hearing certainly, but troglodytes who popped above ground for only a passing moment, and then only to disappear. But this man, not one hundred yards away....
Red withdrew into the shell hole, and quickly mapped out his course. He must at once get back to his own trench. To do so meant a crawl over what must be the skyline to Wilibald, and consequently a point Red could hardly hope to pass unobserved. Red marked a thistle. It was there that he would come into view. He would remain so for about ten yards. Of course, could he once regain his own trench he could take steps to deal with Wilibald, but at present the Hun held the better cards. Red smiled grimly when he thought of his crawl to the shell hole of the previous evening. To the sun, which was shining straight into Wilibald’s eyes, he most certainly owed his life. Now that sun was behind Wilibald.... Red started. As he neared the thistle, his heart beat fast and quick. He passed the thistle. He felt very like a fly crawling over an inverted plate while someone with a fly-trap waited to strike. He was crawling straight away now. The thistle was behind him. Another four yards—two—one—still Wilibald did not fire, and with a deep sigh of relief Red hurled himself into the disused sap and safety.
Later the C.O. was speaking.