The night was pitch black, with an unusual absence of stars. The worst of the rapid fire was over, but there was a steady spit and crackle of bullets from the Turks, and especially from the little trench opposite. Long afterwards, in France, he told me that he would never again dream of going out on patrol in the face of such a fire. But to-night it did not occur to him to delay his expedition. The profession of scouting made a special appeal to the romantic side of him; the prospect of some real, practical scouting was exciting. According to the books much scouting was done under heavy fire, but according to the books, and in the absence of any experience to the contrary, it was probable that the careful scout would not be killed. Then why waste time? (All this I gathered indirectly from his account of the affair.) Two bullets smacked into the parapet by his head as he climbed out of the dark sap and wriggled forward into the scrub; but even these did not give him pause. Only while he lay and waited for the two men to follow did he begin to realize how many bullets were flying about. The fire was now really heavy, and when I heard that Harry had gone out, I was afraid. But he as yet was only faintly surprised. The Colonel had sent him out; the Colonel had said the Turks fired high, and if you kept low you were quite safe--and he ought to know. This was a regular thing in warfare, and must be done. So on like reptiles into the darkness, dragging with hands and pushing with knees. Progress in the orthodox scout fashion was surprisingly slow and exhausting. The scrub tickled and scratched your face, the revolver in your hands caught in the roots; the barrel must be choked with dust. Moreover, it was impossible to see anything at all, and the object of a reconnaissance being to see something, this was perplexing. Even when the frequent flares went up and one lay pressed to the earth, one's horizon was the edge of a tuft of scrub five yards away. This always looked like the summit of some commanding height; but labouring thither one saw by the next flare only another exactly similar horizon beyond. So must the worm feel, wandering in the rugged spaces of a well-kept lawn. It was long before Harry properly understood this phenomenon; and by then his neck was stiff and aching from lying flat and craning his head back to see in front. But after many hours of crawling the ground sloped down a little, and now they could see the sharp, stabbing flashes from the rifles of the snipers in the little trench ahead of them. Clearly they were only snipers, for the flashes came from only eight or nine particular spots, spaced out at intervals. _Now_ the scouts glowed with the sense of achievement as they watched. They had found out. Never again could Harry have lain like that, naked in the face of those near rifles, coldly calculating and watching, without an effort of real heroism. On this night he did it easily--confident, unafraid.