The soft earth deadened their footsteps and they slipped forward like a company of ghosts, hardly a sound breaking the stillness save the distant roar of the heavy guns that caused the ground to quiver and tremble under their feet.
The mist enveloping them began to grow denser minute by minute and before they had gone more than a hundred yards it was with the greatest difficulty that they kept from becoming separated.
It was an uncanny experience for the young, almost untried soldiers, and the Camport boys were excited, and each eager to prove himself worthy of having been chosen for the work.
Suddenly Frank thought he heard a subdued sound on his right and instinctively stopped a moment to locate it more definitely.
In that second his comrades, who apparently had heard nothing, were swallowed up in the thickening fog. Frank's impulse was to hasten after them but he had hardly taken a step forward when he was again halted by a repetition of the noise he had heard before.
He dared not call out to his comrades as he knew that such a cry would betray them all in case they were near the enemy trenches. His next thought was to return to his own lines, but the sound he had heard, surprisingly like the low-pitched gutturals of a German voice, made him unwilling to go back without investigating the matter further. Besides, here was the beginning of an adventure after his own heart, and he thought with a quickening pulse of the satisfaction that would be his if he could, unaided, gather valuable information and take it back to his commanding officer.
This reflection decided him and slowly and with infinite caution he stole in the direction from which the sounds seemed to come.
He had not gone far when his first impression was verified. Through the mist he heard distinctly the subdued sound of voices. Creeping on still farther as quietly and stealthily as a jungle animal, he could finally catch the articulation in the voices, and he knew the language spoken was German.
"I must be mighty near their entanglements by this time," he thought excitedly. "If I can only get through them I ought to be able to hear something. Here goes for a try at it anyway."
He dropped to hands and knees, regardless of the sticky mud, and wormed his way along, one hand outstretched feeling for the wire that he knew must be close. Sure enough he had not gone ten feet when his hand came in contact with the wire. He dropped flat on the ground and carefully drew his wire cutters from his belt. Cautiously he nipped a section out of the lowest strand and crawled beneath. He knew that he would soon come to a second line, and when he reached it he cut it in the same way he had the first, and then cut a third and a fourth.