e the depression they were in shallowed and afforded
less cover as it ran towards the British lines, it was safer for the
party to stay where they were until the fire slackened enough to give
them a fair sporting chance of crawling back in safety.

They lay there for fully two hours before Ainsley considered it safe
enough to move. They were, of course, long since wet through, and by
now were chilled and numbed to the bone. Two of the men had been
wounded, but only very slightly in clean flesh wounds: one through the
arm and one in the flesh over the upper ribs. Ainsley himself bandaged
both men as well as he could in the darkness and the cramped position
necessary to keep below the level of the flying ballets, and both men,
when he had finished, assured him that they were quite comfortable and
entirely free from pain. Ainsley doubted this, and because of it was
the more impatient to get back to their own lines; but he restrained
his impatience, lest it should result in any of his party suffering
another and more serious wound. At last the rifle fire had died down to
about the normal night rate, had indeed dropped at the finish so
rapidly in the space of two or three minutes that Ainsley concluded
fresh orders for the slower rate must have been passed along the German
lines. He gave the word, and they began to creep slowly back, moving
again only when no lights were burning.

There were some gaspings and groanings as the men commenced to move
their stiffened limbs.

"I never knew," gasped one, "as I'd so many joints in my backbone, and
that each one of them could hold so many aches."

"Same like!" said another. "If you'll listen, you can hear my knees and
hips creaking like the rusty hinges of an old barn-door."

Although the men spoke in low tones, Ainsley whispered a stern command
for silence.

"We're not so far away," he said, "but that a voice might carry; and
you can bet they're jumpy enough for the rest of the night to shoot at
the shadow of a whisper. Now come along, and keep low, and drop the
instant a light flares."

They crawled back a score or so of yards that brought them to the
elbow-turn of the depression. The bank of the turn was practically the
last cover they could count upon, because here the ditch shallowed and
widened and was, in addition, more or less open to enfilading fire from
the German side.

Ainsley halted the men and whispered to them that as soon as they
cleared the ditch they were