They felt rather uncomfortable. On this bare embankment, rising from an equally bare plain, there seemed to be no cover of any kind. Yet it was certain that a sniper was within a few yards of them, perhaps within a few feet. They lay perfectly still, watching, waiting for another shot. It did not come. Kenneth began to wonder whether the sniper had seen or heard them, and stolen away. Or perhaps he was stalking them. At this thought Kenneth gripped his revolver.
What was to be done? To prowl about in the darkness on the chance of discovering the marksman would be mere foolhardiness. He hoped on for another shot, not daring even to whisper to Ginger. The minutes lengthened into hours; the two men were cramped with cold; but as if by mutual consent they lay where they were. Neither was willing to go back and report failure. Now and again they caught slight sounds which they were unable to identify or locate. They nibbled some biscuits they had brought with them, determined at least to await the dawn. Conscious of discomfort, they had no sense of fatigue or sleepiness. And when at length the darkness began to yield, they fancied they saw shadowy enemies on the misty plain.
When it was light enough to see clearly, they looked to right and left, to the front and the rear, and discovered no sign of life within a mile of them. The air began to fill with the roll of artillery and the rattle of rifle-shots. Here and there in the distance they saw columns of black smoke. Two aeroplanes passed overhead towards the German lines, and shrapnel shells strewed white puffs around and below them. But on the embankment all was quiet.
"He must have got away in the darkness," Kenneth ventured to whisper at last.
"Can't make it out," murmured Ginger in return.
How the sniper could have escaped unseen was a mystery. Daylight revealed the bareness of the plain. Only a few low hedges divided the fields. One such, bordered by a narrow ditch, ran northward from the railway within a few yards of them. But this could be of no use to a sniper, for it was on the wrong side of the embankment, towards the north.
After a murmured consultation they rose to examine the embankment more closely, in the hope of finding tracks of the sniper. As they did so, a number of bullets whistled around them; their figures had been seen on the skyline by the Germans. Dropping instantly to the ground, they crawled along, skirting the hole made by the shell, and taking care not to slide down in the loose earth that had been displaced. They covered thus a hundred yards or so in each direction, up and down the line, without discovering anything.
"We must give it up," said Kenneth at last. "I don't like to, but I see nothing else for it."
"Our chaps are in billets to-day," said Ginger. "I'm game to stay till to-night if you are."
"All right. We've got our emergency rations. We may as well lie up in the farm, and take turns to sleep."