A prey to the keenest apprehension and fears, he dropped back into the gloom and shadow of the dugout.
"This is worse than the 'Chemin de Mort,'" he cried.
"Very much so, Don, old chap," shouted Dunstan in reply.
Crouching against the wall, the ambulanciers vainly tried to gain some indication of the trend of events.
Sometimes, mingling in with the firing, they heard the voices again, and though fainter than before distance could not rob the sounds of their forbidding nature.
An hour passed—an hour such as neither had ever before experienced. It was filled with every sort of alarm. Veritable streams of shot and shell were crashing over the trench, and at times it seemed to the boys as if the crucial moment had at last arrived and that the host of gray-uniformed invaders must be sweeping down upon them through the smoke clouds.
And then, when both least expected it, there came a second cessation in the violence of the battle; the mitrailleuses and other machine guns stopped their fire altogether, while the sharp, vicious snapping of the rifles was heard only at intervals.
"Great Cæsar! can it be possible that the attack has been repulsed?" cried Don, inexpressible relief and hope in his voice.
"Let's take a look! Let's take a look!" shouted Dunstan.
Without an instant's hesitation Don Hale ran up the ladder; without an instant's hesitation he climbed outside the dugout.