“Good enough!” was the verdict, and a detachment started out for No Man’s Land, divided into two parties.

The enemy trenches were about one hundred yards away, which seems a mile in the darkness and the loneliness of the dead ground. At regular intervals the German rockets flared up so that the hedges and wire and parapets along their line were cut out ink-black against the white illumination, and the two patrols of Yorkshiremen who had been crawling forward stopped and crouched lower and felt themselves revealed, and then when darkness hid them again went on.

The party on the left were now close to the German wire and under the shelter of a hedge. They felt their way along until the two subalterns who were leading came to the gap which had been reported by the first explorer. They listened intently and heard the German sentry stamping his feet and pacing up and down. Presently he began to whistle softly, utterly unconscious of the men so close to him⁠—so close now that any stumble, any clatter of arms, any word spoken, would betray them.