For some seconds he lay still. A few inches above his head came the deafening tick-tock of a German machine-gun. He had fallen in front of the weapon, and was pressed down by a heavy weight that still had the power of movement.
Groping, his fingers came in contact with human hair--the beard of his antagonist. The Prussian was lying face downwards upon the New Zealander's body.
"My festive," mentally ejaculated Rifleman Carr, "you didn't play the game with your body-armour; I'll do the reprisal dodge."
Fiercely he tugged at the Prussian's beard. With a yell of pain the fellow bent his knees and reared his body, only to fall inertly upon the half-suffocated Digger. In rising he had intercepted a dozen or more bullets from the machine-gun. So close was the muzzle, that his clothes smouldered in the blast of the weapon. Not that it mattered very much to him, for he was stone dead.
With a frantic effort Malcolm rolled himself clear of the body of his late foe; then, resisting the temptation to regain his feet, he crouched in a corner of the emplacement and took stock of his immediate front.
He could easily have touched the cooling-jacket of the weapon as the machine-gun continued its death-dealing work. He could discern the sullen, determined features of the two men who alone remained of the machine-gun's crew.
Vainly Malcolm groped for his rifle. The violent impact had sent the weapon yards away. Nor could he find the rifle of his late adversary. The man had been a bomber; perhaps some of his stock of hand-propelled missiles yet remained?
Very cautiously the New Zealander felt for the canvas pockets suspended from the Hun's neck. Every one was empty.
"Rough luck!" he soliloquized. "Don't know so much about it, though; if he had had any left when we scrapped he might have chucked one at my head."
The machine-gun ceased firing. For a moment Malcolm was seized with the haunting fear that the gunners had spotted him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that they were fitting another belt of ammunition.