I had dared to leave an eye open at the surface of my hiding place and saw them coming. But I did not continue this foolishness. Well enough I realized that just this eye--its gleam and movement (even in the night) might attract notice, especially of men keenly watchful. I closed that eye--and with the merest movement sunk my head deeper into the mud. I had hoped to keep my nostrils sufficiently clear of mud to breathe, but in this action they also clogged up and I must have strangled if my enemies had delayed long in the vicinity of my mud-hole. But they saw the dismembered bodies of their comrades, and could see no enemy wounded nearby. They concluded that, escaping our guns, no enemy would remain long in the territory and were equally certain he would not continue his advance toward their batteries. It was natural for them to judge he had retreated for his own lines. This, I suppose, is the way their minds worked and that they continued the pursuit to No Man’s Land until it became dangerous to follow it further and abandoned the hunt. I don’t know. For I did not see them when they departed. I took no chances on peering out. I took only one chance and that was to thrust my nose into the air to keep myself from strangling, but I did this most cautiously. I was left secure for the time at least in my mud-hole. And I was to exist in this wallow for three days. I afterward found out that it was three days. How long I had no idea at the time. There were hours of torture, hours, I presume, of coma, hours of delirium in which I thought I underwent crazy experiences, had amazing visions, dreamed both horrible and beautiful dreams. I could not at any time have been entirely bereft of all my senses for I clearly retain a memory of these mental fantasies, none but two very clearly, but the others, while vague, are still not altogether indefinable. Some time passed and no bayonet came thrusting into my body and no bomb that would rend me and my muddy blankets into a ghastly mess, had fallen. The pain suddenly quieted and a tremendous languor seized me. Immediately I was possessed of a deadly fear of falling asleep. I feared in the first place the peril and horror of the man-eating rat. I feared as well that I would sink so deeply into the mud-hole that I would suffocate as I slept. Yet I realized that it could not be of so very great depth or I must have long ago gone beneath the surface as in a quicksand. I remembered the general aspect of the gap as torn by the shell. It had been a small shell. The gap was not large. And was probably shallow. Besides, the ground beneath me below the mud had a reassuring firmness. But had the mud in the hole been of a depth for me to drown in, it would have made no difference then. A weariness too intense to permit consideration of life and death gripped me. For all I knew it was death itself. What I did know was that I could not fight it. I simply passed out.