CHAPTER IX
THROUGH STORM AND DARKNESS
Steve fell twice and a thorny branch lashed him across the face with painful force before he got the better of that panicky dash. One of two things must have happened. Either the flashlights had been extinguished, or else the men had passed around a bend which hid the sight of them from view. The latter was perhaps the more likely; but it was the possibility that they had heard him and were lurking ahead in the darkness, awaiting his approach, that turned him cold.
It was the first time his nerve had been really shaken, but it was shaken now. The darkness or the plotters, taken separately, he could face without tremors. It was the combination of the two, the combination of the unknown, the unseen, the suspense of uncertainty, which made him shiver and brought out a clammy perspiration on his forehead.
It set him to thinking, also, of the camp and wishing with a desperate sort of longing for the presence of some of the fellows to back him up. If only Cavvy were here, with his cool head and ready wit; his sturdy fearlessness would be a tower of strength. Why, even little Shrimp Willett would be a comfort.
But they were all back there in camp with lights and warmth and cheerfulness about them, while he was here—alone. And he must go forward alone, too, no matter what that beastly blackness held in store for him. He dug his teeth into his under lip. Then his chin went up abruptly.
What had got into him? What was he thinking of? Why, at this very instant men were facing with a smile things a thousand times worse than this. Black wastes of shell-torn barrenness, tangled with barbed wire, littered with unknown pitfalls, loomed into his imagination. There were shadows brightened ominously by the flare of signal rockets or the flash of hand grenades; silences shattered by the thunder of big guns or the whining ping of sharpshooters’ bullets. And in imagination that worst horror of all—the deadly poison gas—caught him for an instant by the throat and choked him. Yet over there men looked hourly into the face of such a death and laughed, while he was afraid to take a little risk—for them!
A burning flush flamed into the boy’s face and he clenched his hands spasmodically. From his lips came a sound of mingled shame and fury and determination.
“What a cur I am!” he grated scornfully. “What a beastly coward to be downed by a little dark and wet! And I won’t be!”
Doubt and hesitation thrown aside, he sped on along the beach. Once or twice the thought of what might be waiting for him slipped past that mental barrier of resolution, but he flung it fiercely back. And when he had gone two hundred yards or so he began to breathe more easily. They could scarcely have been much further off than this when the lights vanished. Another hundred yards and he was quite certain. It was impossible in the darkness to tell where the shoreline curved, but he had a feeling that it must be about this point. A few minutes later the faint, distant gleam of light ahead confirmed his guess.
“All that stupid fuss about nothing,” he growled. “Now it’s up to me to catch up with them.”