CHAPTER XIV
THE SNIPER
I'll teach you, you bounder, to snipe,
For I'm nosing around,
With my face to the ground,
And a round in the breach of my hipe.
You'd best keep a blurry look-out,
For there's no end of trouble about—
With a round in the breach,
I am going to teach
You, you impudent sniper, to snipe.
(From "The Deadly Breach.")
Having blackened his face with a burnt cork, Bowdy Benners fixed his sword on his rifle and clambered over the parapet into No Man's Land. The hour was midnight; the darkness had settled on the firing line and the starshells were rioting in the skies. Although the day had been hot and bright the sky was now covered with clouds, not a star was visible and objects quite near at hand could scarcely be distinguished. The air was warm and still and not a blade of grass was moving. The only sound which Bowdy Benners could hear was the dull rustle of his own clothes as he crawled across the level ground on all fours making his way towards the German lines.
Bowdy was out on a great project, an adventure after his own heart. For many days the German had been potting at Cologne sector, but none had been able to locate the position of the sniper. One thing, however, was evident: he was stationed somewhere in No Man's Land. The German trenches were hidden behind a hillock and the English trenches were immune from observation from that quarter.
Bowdy crawled carefully forward, his eyes alert and his ears strained for any untoward sound. Now and again a flash would light up the levels in front and he could hear a bullet sing past his ears towards the sector which he had just left. But the flash was deceptive and lights were very misleading in the darkness. The sniper took care to fire only when a starshell held the sky above him. In this way, the flash of the rifle, merging as it did into the flare of the starshell, could hardly lay claim to a separate existence.
"I'm not going to find him," muttered Bowdy Benners under his breath. "It's like looking for a needle in.... Blimey! That was a near go."
A bullet swept past Bowdy's head with such a vicious hiss that he put up his hand to feel if it had touched him. But he was unharmed.
"Blow me blind!" he muttered, and crawled forward hurriedly. "Blow me stone blind if that wasn't a near go. The bounder can't see me," he thought. "I haven't blackened my face for nothing."