But what might be happening in that streak between enemy trenches that constituted No Man’s Land was never a certainty to any commander on either side. They detailed me, therefore, to find out if the Germans were attempting to move in any way toward our position. I was to find out if there had been a movement or advance of any kind such as might be suggested by a line of trench newly thrown out. In so far as the progress of my five men and myself were concerned it was easy going. We advanced well across the equator of No Man’s Land without detection and much further. It was, as a matter of fact, all too quiet. We had gone too far without detection in so far as my judgment kept warning me. I was frankly afraid that we were walking into a trap. The Germans rarely left the dividing line of No Man’s Land unguarded. To be sure, I had worked my men from our own trenches and through a land of stubble and hillocks. Most cautiously we had hidden from time to time in our advance to note if anything moved ahead. No Man’s Land in its aspect in this locality presented a hard problem for night observation, in that many small trees had been smashed by artillery fire, leaving stumps that an observer in the night might take to mean a sentry. One such object appeared to me because of its absolute immobility to be surely a tree trunk. I am mighty glad I didn’t jump at my first conclusion. I told my men to “get down,” which brought them prostrate to the ground. I ordered them to hold that position until I could find out what the strange figure in the night might mean. I crawled toward it and crawled for at least twenty yards, before I was positive that it was no shell-broken tree. I saw the man move. He was not moving watchfully but wearily. He had a bayoneted rifle in his hand, and as I moved toward him he stuck the bayonet point in the turf and leaned on the butt in the manner of a man thoroughly tired out. It was all very silent in No Man’s Land and I had to move with extreme caution particularly to avoid ruffling the gravel over the stones. There wasn’t much shrubbery left which I might crackle in my advance. Such as was there was so dampened by rains and mud that you could pass over it without making a sound. So I got to this man without his having the slightest suspicion of my approach. And it was the meanest job I had to perform of the war. Because when I got to him I saw that he was really standing at the top of a tunnel. What this tunnel might mean I did not know. But, of course, I knew that it led somewhere and that at the end of it this single soldier would have reinforcements.