Hurriedly they disentangled a couple of the supporting poles, laying them so that the telephone wire passed over them free of the barbed meshes and Tom, mounting his machine, started at top speed along the road across No Man's Land, dragging the wire after him.

Scarcely had he started when he heard that wasplike whizzing close to him--once, twice, and then a sharp metallic sound as a bullet hit some part of his machine.

He looked back to see if the wire carriers were following, but there was not a sign of any of them except his companion who carried the apparatus, and just as Tom looked this man twirled around like a top, staggered, and fell.
The last of the Americans were picking their way across the tangle of fallen wire before the German fire trench.

He could see them now and again amid dense clouds of smoke as they scrambled over the enemy sandbags and disappeared.
On he sped at top speed, not daring to look around again.

He could feel that the wire was dragging and he wondered where its supporters could be; but he opened his cut-out to get every last bit of power and sped on with the accumulating train of wire becoming a dead weight behind him.
Now, far ahead, he could see gray-coated figures scrambling frantically out of the first line trench, and he thought that the Americans must have carried the attack successfully that far, in any event.