The
watchers saw the dark blot of men and stretcher slip under the wires,
and slowly, very slowly, creep on through the long grass. Half-way
across, the watchers lost them amidst the other black blots and
shadows, and it was a full half-hour after when a private exclaimed
suddenly: "I see them," he said. "There, close where we saw the hand."
The moon vanished a moment, then sailed clear, throwing a strong
silvery light across the open ground, and showing plainly the German
wire entanglements and the black-and-white patchwork of their
barricade. There were no visible signs of the rescue party, for the
good reason that they had slipped into and lay prone in the wide shell
crater that held the wounded Frenchman. Far spent the man was when they
found him, for he had lain there three nights and two days with a
bullet-smashed thigh and the scrape across his skull that had led the
rest of his night patrol to count him dead and so abandon him.
Now the moon slid again behind the racing clouds, and patches of light
and shadow in turn chased across the open ground.
"Here they come," said the captain of B Company a few minutes later.
"At least I think it's them, altho' I can only see two men and no
stretcher."
"Do you see them?" said an eager voice in French at his ear, and when
he turned and found the gunner captain and explained to him, the
captain made a gesture of despair.
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