An indistinct line which might have been a parapet of sandbags, became visible as I stared through the darkness; it looked very near, and my heart thrilled as I watched. Suddenly a stream of red sparks swooped upwards into the air and circled towards us. Involuntarily I stooped under cover, then raised my head again. High up in the air a bright flame stood motionless lighting up the ground in front, the space between the lines. Every object was visible: a tree stripped of all its branches stood bare, outlined in black; at its foot I could see the barbed wire entanglements, the wire sparkling as if burnished; further back was a ruined cottage, the bare beams and rafters giving it the appearance of a skeleton. A year ago a humble farmer might have lived there; his children perhaps played where dead were lying. I could see the German trench, the row of sandbags, the country to rear, a ruined village on a hill, the flashes of rifles on the left ... the flare died out in mid-air and darkness cloaked the whole scene again.
"What do you think of it, Stoner?" I asked the figure by my side.
"My God, it's great," he answered. "To think that they're over there, and the poor fellows lying out on the field!"
"They're their own bloomin' tombstones, anyway," said Bill, cropping up from somewhere.
"I feel sorry for the poor beggars," I said.
"They'll feel sorry for themselves, the beggars," said Bill.
"There, what's that?"
It crept up like a long white arm from behind the German lines, and felt nervously at the clouds as if with a hand. Moving slowly from North to South it touched all the sky, seeking for something. Suddenly it flashed upon us, almost dazzling our eyes. In a flash Bill was upon the banquette.
"Nark the doin's, nark it," he cried and fired his rifle. The report died away in a hundred echoes as he slipped the empty cartridge from its breech.
"That's one for them," he muttered.