This much Ralph Setley heard. From other sounds he came to the conclusion that most, if not all, of the German troops were following their superior's example.
"Time for me to be getting back," he soliloquized. "There may yet be an opportunity for our chaps to raid the trench and rescue Bartlett before the mine is sprung. Wonder how time goes? It seems as if I've been out for a couple of hours."
He returned in quicker time than he had taken to crawl out to the barbed wire entanglements. For one thing the Huns were no longer in the trench, ready to train a machine-gun on any moving object that they were able to discern in the glare of the star-shells. For another thing, the artillery duel had increased in violence, the rain of projectiles from the British guns being unmistakably superior in velocity to that of the Huns. Perhaps it was a prelude to the impending advance? If so, the hour fixed for the firing of the mine was at hand.
"That you, Setley?" came a hoarse whisper almost into his ear.
"Yes," replied Ralph, recognizing Alderhame's voice.
"Thought you had been done in. We've been back some time. I crawled out to see if I could find you. Come along."
A rifle-bullet whizzed past Setley's head.
Promptly he ducked and crouched in a convenient shell-hole. Somewhere in No Man's Land a Hun sniper was on the qui vive.
A dozen shots rang out from the British trenches in reply. The flash of the sniper's rifle had betrayed his position. A squeal, like that of a stuck pig, showed pretty plainly that the Hun ought to have stopped a bullet.
The noise was but a ruse on the sniper's part, for as Alderhame and Setley scrambled over the parapet another shot rang out from the same spot, the bullet grazing the heel of Ralph's boot and cutting a slight furrow on his wrist.