When it was light enough to see clearly, they looked to right and left, to the front and the rear, and discovered no sign of life within a mile of them. The air began to fill with the roll of artillery and the rattle of rifle-shots. Here and there in the distance they saw columns of black smoke. Two aeroplanes passed overhead towards the German lines, and shrapnel shells strewed white puffs around and below them. But on the embankment all was quiet. "He must have got away in the darkness," Kenneth ventured to whisper at last. "Can’t make it out," murmured Ginger in return. How the sniper could have escaped unseen was a mystery. Daylight revealed the bareness of the plain. Only a few low hedges divided the fields. One such, bordered by a narrow ditch, ran northward from the railway within a few yards of them. But this could be of no use to a sniper, for it was on the wrong side of the embankment, towards the north. After a murmured consultation they rose to examine the embankment more closely, in the hope of finding tracks of the sniper. As they did so, a number of bullets whistled around them; their figures had been seen on the skyline by the Germans. Dropping instantly to the ground, they crawled along, skirting the hole made by the shell, and taking care not to slide down in the loose earth that had been displaced. They covered thus a hundred yards or so in each direction, up and down the line, without discovering anything. "We must give it up," said Kenneth at last. "I don’t like to, but I see nothing else for it." "Our chaps are in billets to-day," said Ginger. "I’m game to stay till to-night if you are." "All right. We’ve got our emergency rations. We may as well lie up in the farm, and take turns to sleep." They crawled across the track to the British side of the embankment, slid down the slope, and being now safe from German shots began to walk erect along the bottom, following a slight curve in the direction of the farm. The less of open field they had to cross, the better. They had taken only a few steps along the base of the embankment when Ginger, a little in advance of Kenneth, stopped suddenly, and stooped. Then he turned his head quickly, putting his finger to his lips. Kenneth hurried up. Ginger pointed to a slight track in the grass, leading round the low hedge before mentioned. Without hesitation they began to follow it up, moving with infinite precaution, and bending under cover of the hedge.