But the boys had grown tired of being just in the picture and not in its making.
“The sergeant doesn’t seem to think that we have ever crossed a danger line the way he coddles us.” Billy was ready for argument on this point.
“Wish we had him up in the air a little while,” said Henri, “he wouldn’t be so quick to dictate.”
It was in this mood, during the advance and on the night of the next day, that the boys eluded the vigilant eye of the sergeant long enough to attempt a look around on their own account.
In the dark they stumbled on the German trenches.
Billy grasped Henri’s arm and they turned and made for the British lines, as fast as their legs could carry them, but the fire directed at them was so heavy that they had to throw themselves on the ground and crawl.
There was no cover at hand, and the chances looked mighty desperate for the pair, when Billy saw, close by, an enormous hole in the ground, made by the explosion of a “black maria,” the name given by the soldiers to the projectiles of the big German howitzers.
Into this the boys scrambled, panting and scared to the limit.
“Wouldn’t this jar you?”
Henri had no answer to Billy’s quickfire query. He didn’t think it required any just then. He was “jarred,” in the way the word was used.