The moon was now playing the most exasperating tricks; sometimes she would be quite hidden, only suddenly to flash out again between the light clouds which obscured the heavens. We must have made a bit over a hundred yards or so, when we again heard somebody talking, this time almost directly in front of us; so off we went into the broom again, travelling south-west, and within a few minutes struck another path running parallel with the one we had just left. This bucked us up, as we thought we had escaped a sentry in front of us on the other path; but our hopes were quickly dashed to the ground by the sight of the glowing end of a cigarette right beside the path which we were now on, and not more than thirty yards in front. For a few moments we felt rather hopeless, but soon decided that we must risk crawling through the broom between the two of them. Accordingly we again entered the broom, working our way to a spot which we judged would be about equidistant between the two sentries, and started to crawl forward, taking the most infinite precautions.
We made our way through the broom, crawling one behind the other, the foremost carefully parting the bushes and holding them back for the passage of the one behind, in order that they might not whip back and cause a suspicious sound. Every ten yards or so one of us would crane his head cautiously above the broom to see if we were keeping direction relative to the drives. It was during one of these surveys that we discovered that we were on a level with the sentries on our right and left respectively; for there to our right was the other man, who was also smoking. “Blessed cigar, or whatever you are! What a splendid beacon light you show!”
Crawling on, we left the line of sentries behind us, and had proceeded a little distance when we found that the broom was gradually becoming thinner and thickly interspersed with heather, until finally only thick heather about a foot deep prevailed. Here we were able to notice that a slight wind had sprung up, which was encouraging, as it lessened the chances of our being heard. On the other hand, the moon had come out from behind a big mass of clouds, so that we could be seen from a very great distance. Fortunately she was sinking and would not trouble us much longer. In front of us lay a long stretch of flat heather, over which we must continue to crawl, both because our figures could easily be seen by the sentries behind us and because we did not know what might be in front of us.
We had passed through two lines, possibly we were actually over the frontier; but we dare not risk this. The dispositions of sentries that we had discovered and of those we had eliminated were as shown opposite. Still crawling, we pushed forward slowly and cautiously—at first, in order to
make sure that the sentries behind could see nothing; then, when we had put a good distance between us, we began to quicken the pace, until we were almost running on our hands and knees. But the effort of crawling for such a long period was quickly robbing us of what strength we had left. Every ten or twenty yards we were forced to sink down into the heather for a few moments’ rest, in order to gather a little more energy to go on with, and also to stretch our legs out straight; for we were now suffering agonies with cramp, brought about by the unwonted exercise of the muscles utilised in crawling—even our tongues, were curling back into our mouths; but we set our teeth and crawled on, in spite of the cramp.
“We must succeed, we must beat the Boches! Gad! how sick they’ll be if we get over! But shall we? Thank God, the people at home don’t know we are hunted beasts, and they can’t see the danger we are in; but you see it all, you old moon up there—you can see the dangers in front—you who see all the doings of the night, what does fate hold in store?—you with the tantalising smile, so cold and aloof! I’d swear at you, if I wasn’t afraid of you. Please don’t stare so.”
Presently the moon sank behind a big cloud, and my friend and I were able to rise to our feet and walk slowly forward. The relief of being able once more to stretch our legs was intense. This did not last very long, however, as we suddenly caught the sound of a man’s footsteps pacing evenly upon some hard and ringing substance. Instantly we were on our knees in the heather. Where on earth could the man be? There was no road of any sort, as far as we had been able to see before the moon had sunk behind the clouds. On every side of us was an unbroken expanse of heather, yet the sound of somebody walking was unmistakable, and grew more distinct as we crawled nearer. We were absolutely puzzled, when, looking to our right, I saw another beacon light, perhaps one hundred yards away. Somebody was smoking, and the smoker was moving. At first he seemed to be coming towards us; but as our position could not be bettered by advancing or retreating, we decided to stay where we were, cowering down amongst the heather.
After a little while we decided that the light was moving away from us, to suddenly disappear altogether. Cautiously we crawled forward again, the sound of pacing growing so distinct that it seemed as if it could not be more than a few feet away. Suddenly, without any warning, the two of us found ourselves looking down into a sunken road, about forty feet deep and perhaps one hundred and twenty feet across, into which we must descend, down a steep sandy bank, to the hard surface of the road beneath. The sound of some one pacing puzzled us no longer; for there, not ten yards away, was a small hut, right in the middle of the sunken road, on the other side of which somebody was pacing up and down. We could not see the man, but we could distinguish when he was walking towards us, when he stopped, and when he was walking in the opposite direction.