Greenmantle - John Buchan

uilding on his right.
The thought of a chapel and a bell gave him the notion of some human
agency. And then suddenly the notion was confirmed. The sound was regular
and concerted—dot, dash, dot—dash, dot, dot. The branch of a tree and the wind
may play strange pranks, but they do not produce the longs and shorts of the
Morse Code.
This was where Peter's intelligence work in the Boer War helped him. He
knew the Morse, he could read it, but he could make nothing of the signalling. It
was either in some special code or in a strange language.
He lay still and did some calm thinking. There was a man in front of him, a
Turkish soldier, who was in the enemy's pay. Therefore he could fraternize with
him, for they were on the same side. But how was he to approach him without
getting shot in the process? Again, how could a man send signals to the enemy
from a firing-line without being detected? 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 communication trenches. If somebody moving up the latter caught
the noise, it would be easy to explain it naturally. But the wind blowing down
the cup would carry it far in the enemy's direction.
There remained the risk of being 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 nearest might be a dozen yards off. He
had read about that being the French fashion under a big bombardment.
The next thing was to find out how to make himself known to this ally. He
decided that the only way was to surprise him. He might get shot, but he trusted
to his strength and agility against a man who was almost certainly wearied.
When he had got him safe, explanations might follow.
Peter was now enjoying himself hugely. If only those infernal guns 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 him, and very quiet, too, except for
soughings of the dying gale. 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