ullets whistled and stormed, breaking more twigs and branches from the
already shattered, practically denuded trees. The two slid precipitately
into the indicated shell-hole, into stinking mud. Wells' guns burst into
action.

"Damn! I hated to do this," the sergeant grumbled, "On accounta I just
got half dry."

"Wise me up," Kinnison directed. "The more I know about things, the more
apt I am to get through."

"This is what is left of two battalions, and a lot of casuals. They made
objective, but it turns out the outfits on their right and left
couldn't, leaving their flanks right out in the open air. Orders come in
by blinker to rectify the line by falling back, but by then it couldn't
be done. Under observation."

Kinnison nodded. He knew what a barrage would have done to a force
trying to cross such open ground in daylight.

"One man could prob'ly make it, though, if he was careful and kept his
eyes wide open," the sergeant-major continued. "But you ain't got no
binoculars, have you?"

"No."

"Get a pair easy enough. You saw them boots without any hobnails in 'em,
sticking out from under some blankets?"

"Yes. I get you." Kinnison knew that combat officers did not wear
hobnails, and usually carried binoculars. "How come so many at once?"

"Just about all the officers that got this far. Conniving, my guess is,
behind old Slayton's back. Anyway, a kraut aviator spots 'em and dives.
Our machine-guns got him, but not until after he heaved a bomb. Dead
center. Christ, what a mess! But there's six-seven good glasses in
there. I'd grab one myself, but the general would see it--he can see
right through the lid of a mess-kit. Well, the boys have shut those
krauts up, so I'll hunt the old man up and tell him what I found out.
_Damn_ this mud!"

Kinnison emerged sinuously and snaked his way to a row of blanket
covered forms. He lifted a blanket and gasped: then vomited up
everything, it seemed, that he had eaten for days. But he _had_ to have
the binoculars.

He got them.

Then, still retching, white and shaken, he crept westward; availing
himself of every possible item of cover.

For some time, from a point somewhere north of his route, a machine-gun
had been intermittently at work. It was close; but the very loudness of
its noise, confused as it was by resounding echoes, made it impossible
to locate at all exactly the weapon's position. Kinnison crept forward
inchwise; scanning every foot of visible terrain t