Summary

Lewis Arno loses Rochambeau and must go over the top alone to find and silence the shriek that has been shredding the men’s nerves. He strips his kit to essentials, keeps his rifle, and clings to The Son of Tarzan, asking Cyril Bagger how the story ends as if a plot resolution might steady him. Bagger, who has quietly angled the game so Arno takes the risk, cannot bear to watch the boy crawl out by himself and follows him into No Man’s Land.

The two inch forward through rain-swamped craters and wreckage until they see a vertical shaft of white light rising into the clouds. At the base of the light, snarled in concertina wire, lies a woman in a red dress and blue cape. Arno insists they must save her, and Bagger joins him, cutting wire with clippers and then...