Death or glory might await them.
They might all be killed by a single German shell, or they might run
into a German working party, out to repair the wire cut during the
day's firing. In the latter case there would be a fight--an even
chance, perhaps. They might capture or be captured.
On and on they went, treading close together and in single file,
making little noise. Straight across the desolate stretch of land
that lay between the two lines of trenches they went, and, when half
way, there came from the German side a sudden burst of star shells.
These are a sort of war fireworks that make a brilliant
illumination, and the enemy was in the habit of sending them up
every night at intervals, to reveal to his gunners any party of the
enemy approaching.
"Down! Down!" hissed the lieutenant. But he need not have uttered
the command. All had been told what to do, and fell on their faces
literally--their smoke-blackened faces. In this position they
resembled, as nearly as might be, some of the dead bodies scattered
about, and that was their intention.
Still each one had a nervous fear. The star shells were very
brilliant and made No Man's Land almost as bright as when bathed in
sunshine, a condition that had not prevailed of late. There was no
guarantee that the Germans would not, in their suspicious hate, turn
their rifles or machine guns on what they supposed were dead bodies.
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