Kentucky, Larry, and Pug kept throughout within arm’s length of one another. They had set out under the same bargain to keep close and help one another if need arose; but Kentucky at least confesses that any thoughts of a bargain, any memory of an arranged program, had completely left him, and very probably his thoughts ran in much the same direction as three-fourths of the charging line. His whole mind, without any conscious effort of reasoning, was centered on getting over the open as quickly as possible, of coming to hand grips with the Germans, of getting down into their trench out of reach of the sleeting bullets that swept the open. He arrived at the conclusion that in the open he was no more than a mere helpless running target for shells and bullets; that once in the German trench he would be out of reach of these; that if the trench were held and it came to hand-to-hand fighting, at least he would stand an equal chance, and at least his hand could guard his head. How many men he might have to meet, what odds would be against him, whether the attackers would be thinned out to a hopeless outnumbering, he hardly troubled to think. That need could be met as it arose, and in the meantime the first and more imperative need was to get across the open, to escape the bullets that pelted about them. He ran on quite unconscious of whether the rest of the line was still advancing, or whether it had been exterminated. Arrived at the wrecked entanglements of wire he did look round, to find Larry and Pug close beside him, and all three plunged into the remains of the entanglement almost side by side, and began to kick and tear a way over and through the remaining strands and the little chopped fragments that strewed the ground.