They were three-quarters of the way across now, but still with a
dangerous slope to cross. It was ever so slight, but, tilted as it was
towards the enemy's line, it was enough to show much more plainly
anything that moved or lay upon its face. They crawled on with a
slowness that was an agony to watch, crawled an inch at a time, lying
dead and still when a light flared, hitching themselves and the
dragging stretcher onwards as the dullness of hazed moonlight fell.
The French captain was consumed with impatience, muttering exhortations
to caution, whispering excited urgings to move, as if his lips were at
the creepers' ears, his fingers twitching and jerking, his body
hitching and holding still, exactly as if he too crawled out there and
dragged at the stretcher.
And then when it seemed that the worst was over, when there was no more
than a score of feet to cover to the barbed wire, when they were
actually crawling over the brow of the gentle rise, discovery came.
There were quick shots from one spot of the German parapet, confused
shouting, the upward soaring of half a dozen blazing flares.
And then before the two dragging the stretcher could move in a last
desperate rush for safety, before they could rise from their prone
position, they heard the rattle of fire increase swiftly to a trembling
staccato roar.
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