War helped him.
He knew the Morse, he could read it, but he could make nothing of the
signalling. It was either in some special code or in a strange
language.

He lay still and did some calm thinking. There was a man in front of
him, a Turkish soldier, who was in the enemy's pay. Therefore he could
fraternize with him, for they were on the same side. But how was he to
approach him without getting shot in the process? Again, how could a
man send signals to the enemy from a firing-line without being
detected? Peter found an answer in the strange configuration of the
ground. He had not heard a sound until he was a few yards from the
place, and they would be inaudible to men in the reserve trenches and
even in the communication trenches. If somebody moving up the latter
caught the noise, it would be easy to explain it naturally. But the
wind blowing down the cup would carry it far in the enemy's direction.

There remained the risk of being heard by those parallel with the bell
in the firing trenches. Peter concluded that that trench must be very
thinly held, probably only by a few observers, and the nearest might be
a dozen yards off. He had read about that being the French fashion
under a big bombardment.

The next thing was to find out how to make himself known to this ally.
He decided that the only way was to surprise him. He might get shot,
but he trusted to his strength and agility against a man who was almost
certainly wearied. When he had got him safe, explanations might follow.

Peter was now enjoying himself hugely. If only those infernal guns
kept silent he would play out the game in the sober, decorous way he
loved. So very delicately he began to wriggle forward to where the
sound was.

The night was now as black as ink around him, and very quiet, too,
except for soughings of the dying gale. The snow had drifted a little
in the lee of the ruined walls, and Peter's progress was naturally very
slow. He could not afford to dislodge one ounce of snow. Still the
tinkling went on, now in greater volume. Peter was in terror lest it
should cease before he got his man.

Presently his hand clutched at empty space. He was on the lip of the
front trench. The sound was now a yard to his right, and with infinite
care he shifted his position. Now the bell was just below him, and he
felt the big rafter of the woodwork from which it had fallen. He felt
something else--a stretch of wire fixed in the g