It was thought unlikely that the slight advantage which their precedence up this hill might give them would tempt the Germans to pause and give battle there, for they were running as suburbanites run to catch their trains. But if they should emerge upon the top of this towering cliff before our boys had verged out of range of it into the woods there might be an unhappy story to tell. I did not realize it while I was tramping along rather faster than is my wont, but I knew afterward that this peril had been averted by a pretty narrow calculation on the part of our officers and some pretty good sprinting of the men.
As it turned out, our detachment was well out of range of the height and pushing rapidly westward through the protecting woods when I found myself standing alone in the shadow of the rock-ribbed ascent. A better target one could scarcely imagine, and I reflected on the danger in which I was placing myself for no better reason than a sentimental, perhaps a sort of morbid, desire to see the spot where Tom Slade had fallen.
One advantage I had, and that was the declining sun which flickered the rocks with glints of changing light, and I consoled myself with the thought that it would soon be dusk.
Between myself and the cliff lay an expanse of marshland a quarter of a mile or so in width, I should say, and into this I plunged, wallowing through the mushy undergrowth and stumbling the more because I must keep my eyes fixed upon the summit of the hill.
No sign of life was there upon that frowning cliff, only the little crimson glints, coming and going as the light failed.
Once and again I fancied these to be soldiers, and a particularly steady glare in what seemed to be a clump of foliage troubled me with misgivings lest the light might be reflected from the steel of a machine-gun.
I had thought of carrying a large bunch of swamp growth by way of camouflaging myself, but it was quite difficult enough to move through the swamp without that handicap. Once I got a footing upon something hard and the pressure of my weight sent the other end of it bobbing up out of the mushy scum, and I was startled to see a skeleton leg with a few shreds upon it sticking up and hanging over at the knee in a gruesome manner. A German helmet lay near the skull, which I had trodden upon. As I plodded on the ghastly thing settled itself again into the marsh as if it had been prematurely awakened out of a peaceful slumber.
I was pretty thoroughly drenched when I reached the foot of the hill and it occurred to me that by rolling in the dry earth there I might acquire an appearance conforming to the hue and character of my surroundings. That done, I began my climb.
The ascent was not quite as precipitous as it had looked from a distance, but it was all up and down, the loose earth sliding so in places that I kept slipping back and seemed to make no more progress than a horse on a treadmill. Moreover, there was great danger from descending stones in these places, for the whole land above seemed in process of erosion and one big rock, in the shelter of which I paused to rest, went tumbling away below me leaving me sprawling.
At last, after fifteen or twenty minutes of this strenuous, lose-and-gain progress, I reached the little area of vegetation where the Scuppers, so-called, were located. Here I had a splendid birds-eye view of the road over which we had come and the swamp and the adjacent woods around the west slope of the hill. The ascent, I saw, must be very gradual there, and I realized what I had not realized before, that if our boys were so fortunate as to catch the enemy between themselves and this cliff there would be something else besides stones rolling down. Perhaps that was part of the plan of our officers. They never confided anything to me.