Midnight came, and with it the return of the lieutenant's official
manner. He saw the trio slide over the top, one by one, vanishing
in the starless dark. "Good luck going and coming," he whispered;
and it sounded almost like an unofficial prayer.
In single file they crept through the prepared opening in the
barbed-wire entanglement, and so out into No Man's Land, where they
took up their spike-team formation. Phipps-Herrick was the leader,
the other men were the wheelers. They had agreed on a code of
silent signals: One kick with the heel or one pinch with the hand
meant "stop"; two meant "back"; three meant "get together." They
carried no rifles, because the rifle is an awkward tool for a
noiseless crawler to lug. But each man had a big trench-knife and
a pair of automatic pistols, with plenty of ammunition.
The space between the two front lines of barbed wire in this region
was not more than four or five hundred yards. In the murk of that
unstarred, drizzling night, where every inch must be felt out, it
seemed like a vast, horrible territory.
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