"It is a game of give-and-take, and all the luck cannot be ours." Still nearer the enemy's wire defenses lay a smaller shell-hole.
By creeping up beside the sentry Prescott was able to see it.
He remained where he was while a soldier of the French party, holding a bomb in his right hand, crept out of the crater, moving noiselessly ahead.
Arrived at the edge of the smaller shell-hole the soldier sent back a hand signal, then crept down into concealment.
Up out of the crater started the sergeant without delay.

As he passed Prescott the noncommissioned officer gripped him, pointing backward.

There knelt De Verne, signaling to the American to accompany the sergeant.

Side by side the pair made the smaller shell-hole, which proved of just sufficient size to screen three men.
For three or four minutes the trio crouched here, listening intently, though no sounds came from the nearby German trench.
After waiting, as he thought, long enough, the French sergeant made an expressive gesture or two before the face of the soldier with him, who, after examining his bombs, crept out and forward, toward the barbed wire defenses of the enemy.
Short though the distance was, the man was gone more than five minutes.

Prescott, who at first could see the soldier as he moved, was not so sure of it later.