Elated with his little success, something prompted him to go farther and confirm his deductions. He whispered to his men to lie down in a fold of the ground, and crept forward to the very trench itself, aiming at a point midway between two flashes. There was no wire in front of the trench, but as he saw the parapet looming like a mountain close ahead, he began to realize what a mad fool he was, alone and helpless within a yard of the Turks, an easy mark in the light of the next flare. But he would not go back, and squirming on worked his head into a gap in the parapet, and gazed into a vast blackness. This he did with a wild incautiousness, the patience of the true scout overcome by his anxiety to do what he intended as soon as possible. The Turks' own rifles had drowned the noise of his movements, and providentially no flare went up till his body was against the parapet. When at length the faint wavering light began and swelled into sudden brilliance, he could see right into the trench, and when the shadows chased each other back into its depths as the light fell, he lay marvelling at his own audacity: so impressed was he by the wonder of his exploit that he was incapable of making any intelligent observations, other than the bald fact that there were no men in that part of the trench. He was still waiting for another flare when there was a burst of rapid fire from our own line a little to the right. Suddenly he realized that B Company _did not know he was out_; C Company knew, but in his haste he had forgotten to see that the others were informed before he left, as he had arranged to do with the Colonel. He and his scouts would be shot by B Company. Obsessed with this thought he turned and scrambled breathlessly back to the two waiting men. God knows why he wasn't seen and sniped; and his retirement must have been very noisy, for as he reached the others all the snipers in the trench opened fire feverishly together. Harry and his men, who were cold with waiting, wriggled blindly back; they no longer pretended to any deliberation or cunning, but having come to no harm so far were not seriously anxious about themselves; only it seemed good to go back now. But after a few yards one of the men, Trower, gave a scream of agony and cried out, 'I'm hit, I'm hit.'