within the area over which he calculated the illumination would expose
him. The instant the last flicker of the third light died out, he
leaped to his feet, and made a rush. The lights had shown him a scanty
few rows of barbed wire between him and the crater; he had reckoned
roughly the number of steps to it and counted as he ran, then more
cautiously pushed on, feeling for the wire, found it, threw himself
down, and began to wriggle desperately underneath. When he thought he
was through the last, he rose; but he had miscalculated, and the first
step brought his thighs in scratching contact with another wire. His
heart was in his mouth, for some seconds had passed since the last
light had died and he knew that another one must flare up at any
instant. Sweeping his arm downward and forward, he could feel no wire
higher than the one-which had pricked his legs. There was no time now
to fiddle about avoiding tears and scratches. He swung over the wire,
first one leg, then another, felt his mackintosh catch, dragged it free
with a screech of ripping cloth that brought his heart to his mouth,
turned and rushed again for the crater. As he ran, first one light,
then another, soared upwards and broke out into balls of vivid white
light that showed the crater within a dozen steps. It was no time for
caution, and everything depended on the blind luck of whether a German
lookout had his eyes on that spot at that moment. Without hesitation,
he continued his rush to the foot of the mound on the crater's edge,
hurled himself down on it and lay panting and straining his ears for
the sounds of shots and whistling bullets that would tell him he was
discovered. But the lights flared and burned out, leaped afresh and
died out again, and there was no sign that he had been seen. For the
moment he felt reasonably secure. The earth on the crater's rim was
broken and irregular, the surface an eye-deceiving patchwork of broken
light and black heavy shadow under the glare of the flying lights. The
mackintosh he wore was caked and plastered with mud, and blended well