And now I was forced into the sickening acknowledgment that, while my logic had been sound when I sought to dissuade Pest from returning to the prisoner, my nerve had not been. I knew that my feverish urgency was not unmixed with personal fear. Never did a more sick and anguished heart cry out to God than the one that supplicated for that stretcher party. _But it did not appear!_ When the suspense became unbearable, I hurried to the major; and, when I told him the situation, he became very grave. He had been trying for some minutes to silence our own batteries, fearing that the enemy would continue to concentrate their fire on objectives near our battalion headquarters if our firing continued to stir them up. And our fire _was_ stirring them up! Our shelling was deadly and unrelenting. The major wanted to give that party in the field a chance to get back. But his communications were down. Already two runners had been despatched, and the signal-corps men were working frantically. I asked for permission to go down the road a little way to see whether there might be a sign of the men. I could not face my own soul without knowing for myself what Pest's end was. The major understood, and down the road I went. A great fear possessed me, but it was a new kind of fear. I reached the edge of the open place; there was no sign of life anywhere. The snow was falling again, and I hurried on. I met a runner; he had not seen the party. Three minutes more, and I was on the spot where the first barrage broke; and still there was no sign. Suddenly the tightening about my heart loosened, and I fairly shouted, "There would be _something_ left, if they were dead." A second runner was skirting the woods we had passed through earlier in the day. I ran to meet him, and fairly choked him to get the information that I was desperately searching for. "Yes," he had seen them. They had waited till the shelling stopped, and then from the cover of the woods he had watched them rush the stretcher back to the trench. They had followed close against the lower side of the trench, the longer way into the village. This brought them into the lower end of the town, and gave them a slight cover for the entire distance. It was the way we should have taken in the beginning. "And now," the runner said, "this is our 'busy' afternoon,"--I had heard the word so often that day,--"and we must get to headquarters 'toot sweet'!" The youthful veteran instructed me to follow him at a distance of twenty paces, and he led the way down the road which skirted the edge of the field farthest from the German lines. The snow was falling more rapidly now, and we were practically safe from observation. We walked in the shallow ditch by the roadside, so that in case shelling was resumed we could avail ourselves of its protection. By lying flat we should be on a level with the surface of the ground.