It became rapidly apparent that he would never make the end of the line before it was upon him. He looked, at last, for MacConnachie, but MacConnachie was nowhere to be seen. He told himself that this was due to the nature of the ground, but his determination wilted, and he began to seek a place to hide.

Every movement was stiff with caution now. Figures lurched into view not thirty yards away, and snatches of conversation came to him. He wriggled to a gully and, sliding into it, burrowed deep into the thick scrub. With one cheek pressed against the cool soil, he waited, straining his ears for the slightest sound. But it was no good. Whatever training may decree about the white flash of a face in shadow, he was unable to accept the prospect of lying there, face down, to be bayoneted in the back. He turned with great caution to face whatever came, looking up into the impenetrable brush.

The sound of voices was loud now, and the swishing of boots through scrub seemed everywhere. He clung to the canteen, suddenly pulling it, on impulse, over his stomach to protect it, wishing MacConnachie were with him, or that he knew MacConnachie was safe. As a man does, even when he can see nothing, he moved his eyes to follow the sounds that approached him.

For an immensely long time the voices were near without actually reaching him, then suddenly boots crunched by very close to his head, and he heard the swish and snick of searching metal against the branches, and the small chop of steel driving into earth. He had intended to remain alert to the last, to fight when all hope was gone, but in fact he shut his eyes and murmured, ‘God, God.’

There was a startlingly loud remark in his right ear, and the first line was gone.

Silence fell, of such a pitch that he gasped. He thought, until that last moment, that he had lain calm, but now his bones creaked as they unlocked themselves from a posture so rigid it sent pains flaring down his limbs. What in the name of God had happened to MacConnachie? At the thought, his body locked again in fear, waiting for the sudden shout and the bursts of rapid fire. Then he heard the second line approaching.

No search, however deep, can be completely thorough. It is the nature of men that, seeing the man in front, they tend to probe in different places. Ansell lay in no danger from the second line, but he suffered as he had never suffered with the first.

By the time the second line had passed, Ansell knew he should never have hidden in a gully; it was the first place a searcher would look. But observation should have told him that this fact had twice been defied in the event. And common sense should have told him that no soldier, laden with equipment in the hot sun, would willingly struggle along a gully when he could walk beside it, using the length of his rifle to poke its depths with a bayonet. Ansell made up his mind to move.