Part 30 (2/2)

Just then he heard voices-sround He instantly jumped to what this must mean It was a Turkish trench-a communication trench Peter didn't know much about modern warfare, but he had read in the papers, or heard froht moral The fresh dead pointed to the sah were the Turkish support trenches, not their firing-line That was still before him

He didn't despair, for the rebound froeous He crawled forward, an inch at a ti no sort of risk, and presently found hi at the parados of a trench Then he lay quiet to think out the next step

The shelling had stopped, and there was that queer kind of peace which falls sometimes on two armies not a quarter of abut the far-off sighing of the wind There seemed to be no moveh the ruined building The light of the burning was dying, and he could just an to feel hungry, and got out his packet of food and had a swig at the brandy flask That coain But the next step was not so easy He must find out what lay behind that mound of earth

Suddenly a curious sound fell on his ears It was so faint that at first he doubted the evidence of his senses Then as the wind fell it came louder It was exactly like so struck by a stick, musical and oddly resonant

He concluded it was the wind blowing a branch of a tree against an old boiler in the ruin before hih wind now for that in this sheltered cup

But as he listened he caught the note again It was a bell, a fallen bell, and the place before him must have been a chapel He re ht

The thought of a chapel and a bell gave hiency And then suddenly the notion was confirular and concerted-dot, dash, dot-dash, dot, dot The branch of a tree and the wind s and shorts of the Morse Code

This here Peter's intelligence work in the Boer War helped him He knew the Morse, he could read it, but he couldIt was either in soe

He lay still and did so There was a man in front of him, a Turkish soldier, as in the enemy's pay Therefore he could fraternize with him, for they were on the sa shot in the process? Again, how could adetected? Peter found an answer in the strange configuration of the ground He had not heard a sound until he was a few yards from the place, and they would be inaudible to men in the reserve trenches and even in the coht the noise, it would be easy to explain it naturally But the wind blowing down the cup would carry it far in the ene heard by those parallel with the bell in the firing trenches Peter concluded that that trench must be very thinly held, probably only by a few observers, and the nearestthe French fashi+on under a big bo was to find out how to make himself known to this ally He decided that the only as to surprise hiility against a ot hiht follow

Peter was now enjoying hiuns kept silent he would play out the game in the sober, decorous way he loved So very delicately he began to wriggle forward to where the sound was

The night was now as black as ink around hiale The snow had drifted a little in the lee of the ruined walls, and Peter's progress was naturally very slow He could not afford to dislodge one ounce of snow Still the tinkling went on, now in greater voluot his man

Presently his hand clutched at empty space He was on the lip of the front trench The sound was now a yard to his right, and with infinite care he shi+fted his position Now the bell was just below hi rafter of the ork fro else-a stretch of wire fixed in the ground with the far end hanging in the void That would be the spy's explanation if anyone heard the sound and ca the cause

Somewhere in the darkness before him and beloas thethe situation He could not see, but he could feel the presence, and he was trying to decide the relative position of thewas not so easy as it looked, for if he juht et a bullet in the stoame was probably handy with his firearms Besides, if he should hit the bell, he would make a hideous row and alarht chance The unseen figure stood up and ainst the parados He actually brushed against Peter's elboho held his breath

There is a catch that the Kaffirs have which would need several diagrams to explain It is partly a neck hold, and partly a paralysing backward twist of the right arm, but if it is practised on a man from behind, it locks hiot his body raised and his knees drawn under hiot hie of the trench, and he felt in the air thefeebly but unable to reach behind

'Be still,' whispered Peter in German; 'I mean you no harm We are friends of the same purpose Do you speak Gerlish?'

'Yes,' said the voice

'Thank God,' said Peter 'Then we can understand each other I've watched your notion of signalling, and a very good one it is I've got to get through to the Russian lines solish-a kind of English, so we're on the saood and talk reasonably?'

The voice assented Peter let go, and in the same instant slipped to the side The ripped vacancy

'Steady, friend,' said Peter; 'you ry'

'Who are you? Who sent you?' asked the puzzled voice

Peter had a happy thought 'The Companions of the Rosy Hours,' he said