He intended to use the bayonet. If he shot the man he was stalking alarm
would be given and he would be riddled with bullets before he got back.
He was willing to give a life for a life if it were necessary, but he
was reluctant to do so if it could be avoided. Cold steel would be
better. Cold steel! He smiled grimly. It would need some hot blood to
take the chill off the bayonet at the end of his rifle.

Slowly, almost holding his breath lest he be noticed, he edged his way
along. He had plenty of time for thought. This was not so easy a job as
he had fancied, not the physical part, but the mental strain. He could
shoot a man who was shooting at him, he could batter a man over the head
who was trying to do the same to him, but this stalking a man in cold
blood was different somehow. Cold blood! He laughed soundlessly at his
recurrent fancy. He went a little more slowly. Finally he stopped to
consider.

From the nook ahead of him in which the enemy had ensconced himself came
a sudden rapid rattle of rifle-shots. His friend back in the trench was
doing his part. The man was awake--on the alert. It would be something
of a fair fight, he thought with some little satisfaction. He surveyed
the intervening space beyond the coppice. The men in the trenches on
both sides would be awake, too. It would take him a few seconds to cross
that space and get at the man he was stalking. Could they shoot him
before that? There was some shelter where the enemy was. If the stalker
could get to that spot he would be protected for a moment from fire from
the enemy's trench.

It would take him a second or two to cross that space. In a second or
two what might happen? Well, he would have to risk that. At the very