In single file, one after another, Cummins going first, Glover sticking to him like a leech, and the two signalmen close behind, they began to clamber up, hauling themselves hand over hand, forcing their way through bushes, and always keeping upward.
It was slow work, and Cummins halted, whenever a clear spot was reached, to enable stragglers to close up. At the first halt, a quarter of an hour after the start, the little party was silently mustered. All were present, fifty-three men and six officers.
There had been a great deal of noise of breaking bushes, falling stones, and muttered oaths, but the shrieking of the wind among the trees effectually drowned it.
Presently Cummins found himself faced by an almost perpendicular cliff and called another halt. Ten minutes—it seemed like hours—went by before he found a way up, and the little column, bending to the left, struggled on again.
Now the ground became more open, covered with coarse grass up to the knees and dotted with stunted trees. Progress was more rapid.
A pheasant disturbed from sleep flew off with a "whr! whr!" which made the men's hearts leap to their mouths. Occasionally a frightened wood-pigeon darted from his roosting-place. Most scaring these noises were in the pitch darkness.
Faintly, at intervals, they could now hear the dull sound of distant firing, sometimes fast and furious, dropping again to a few single shots at long intervals, then recurring with renewed vigour. It was Lang in "No. 2" demonstrating outside the entrance and drawing the attention of the forts. These were replying savagely.
Not a sound came from above except the soughing of the cold wind.
At the next halt two marines were missing. One rejoined, bruised from a fall, but they could not wait for the second. "Who is he?" was whispered along the line. "Bolton, a Blue Marine," was passed back from the rear.
At the end of the first hour he was the only man missing. Some of the water in the breakers had been spilt, a helmet or two knocked off and lost in the darkness—that was all.