The question caused a queer sensation to run down the innermost parts of his body and the sensation was one of fear. He mumbled many things to himself in a thick, quick undertone. Then, without realising the risks he ran, Fitzgerald crawled over the parapet and went out into the open, taking his rifle with him. It was a man lying face downwards on the ground that attracted his attention first. He could have sworn that the man moved and brought a rifle to bear upon him. Fitzgerald stood upright and fired at the man twice, only to find that he was riddling a corpse with bullets. He flung himself flat to avoid the machine gun that opened fire and waited till it ceased its play. A galaxy of starshells lit up the heavens and a big shell of another pattern whirled across the open and burst with a dizzy clatter. In the distance could be heard the transports of war clattering along the roads, the clank of rails unleaded at some far-off railway siding, and gleaming luridly against the darkness could be seen the flames of a building on fire some dozen miles away. Near Fitzgerald lay a dead man, further off another, looking like an empty sack flung on the ground. The maxim fire stammered into silence and the youth got to his feet, looked round and listened with strained ears. Somewhere near he could hear the sound of hammers and the creaking of shovels and he concluded that a working party was busy at its toil. It was impossible to determine to what side the party belonged. It might be German. The lines of trenches were very confused and salients projected out like ducks' bills in places, and at other points they receded some five hundred yards from the opposite front. No man was ever more solitary than poor, mud-stained Rifleman Fitzgerald at that moment. And the night was full of mysterious whispers, sounds, creakings and rustlings. Spirits seemed to lurk on the vacant face of the earth and uncanny spirits hovered over the world. In the near distance all objects took on strange, undefined shapes, well in keeping with the grotesque fantasy of war.... Suddenly Fitzgerald fancied that he heard somewhere near him the sharp snap of a rifle bolt. He turned round and scurried back to the trench which he had just left. It seemed quite a distance to traverse and he slipped over the parapet and flopped down into the mud. But not a soul was to be seen, the trench was deserted. Neither was it the trench which he had left. Here the slush reached his hips. "Well, I'm damned!" he said, and leant against the parapet. "What am I going to do? I'm going to stick here, stick well in."