o'Cloc

aw

to the door of the dug-out with surprising alacrity, as the merry laughing

," that worthy had attached himself to the new arrival with the same devotion he

hands to go with me. The Divisional C.O. wishes the enemy wire examined, a

in that puckered his dirty, mahogany-coloured face. "Bette

strafing our trench at dusk. If not, and everything is fairly quiet, we'll move o

y Hawke jump round, ready to salute, but his hand dropped to his side again, for it

" cried Dennis, emerging from his burrow and seizing the ou

d in behind the brigade on your right, and the first person I set eyes on was Uncle Arthur, who happens to know our old man. So, as we are in the reserve t

said Dennis. "Come

followed him down the three s

lour, said the spider to th

ven't room for even a spider's web, th

und at the little square cave excavated months before by the Germans in the c

er, you know. He'll be in presently for t

"Gad, Dennis, that was an awful hash up!" And he blew a cloud of tobacco smoke to cir

head in at the door. "You didn't answer this gentlema

ng up some fresh wire over yonder, and they want to know at D.H.Q. whether it's permanent or te

usin. "As long as I report mys

ke, my cousin w

an, sir, and I'll warn Tiddler. H

"They're a filthy crowd, anyhow. Ten o'clock sh

doorway when Captain Dashwood blotted out the light and

ugh, but they both saw something unusual in his face

's just sent it over," and he tossed Ott

rise me, because it does; but, you know, I never tumbled eit

ows. It is the beastly ingratitude that gets over me. The mater rigged that girl out from top to toe, and paid her jolly well, too, and Van Drissel had the run of the house, and then went away with three boxes of the brigad

ultless teeth gleamed in th

id, with an odd twinkle in his grey eyes, but he had already

ain Bob. "They're sick to death of the whole business, but Prussians or

le and Dennis had dragged a Tate sugar box, which acted as cupboard, into the centre of the floor, they drank hot tea, whic

o the spoonful and enteric to follow. Our boys put in a requisition f

y forcibly as his battalion passed them. And then Bob, having duties to attend to, went away in the gathering dusk, and they hung a ground sheet over the door and lit a candle, and Dan, with his huge ar

h there came a cough from the other side of

ce at the watch. "Here's a spare revolver fo

crawl," said his cousin. "I'll ta

ther side of the door of the dug-out, as they pulled aside the ground sheet

edge of the sandbags, and a little way off the rosy glow from a br

ough 'em, sir; they're lying out in front

shell holes, of course-straight out to their wire. You and Tiddler will keep twenty yards behin

horus, and Dennis led the way to the bay in

e, his rifle on a sandbag before him

?" said Dennis,

rget there's a machine-gun yonder, thirty paces to the left of the willow s

" And the next moment four dark forms clambered across th

ur listening post lay, and as they crawled towards it one of the men tapped

l booming, the German guns were shelling the French lines inte

their wire, Baker?" whispered Dennis to the last m

biggish crump-hole straight ahead, and two more on the left a

ustling in the tangled grass, bringing with it the acrid odour of unburied corpses. Dan

hole, and glancing every few yards at the luminou

ur since we left the listening post." And he felt cautiously to the f

it, but they had p

ian; "I thought I heard somethin

ent. It was like the solemn rattle of

ned us about," he said, after they had listened breathlessly for a

d, if they had only known it; and it was from their right rea

rbs of a low-stretched strand bury themselves i

mate he shook the strand; the well-known jangle of an empty bully-beef tin warning them all th

d from the darkness just in front and above their heads, Dan and Dennis heard a guttural whisper,

is in his cousin's ear. "But how the dickens ha

upon him, remembered that slither of ea

fted a section of the wire to let them through," he replied. "We may meet them

pened, and Dennis was just congratulating himself that their presence there was unsuspected when there was a sh

the German sandbags; but as Dennis looked back over his shoulder, he saw the luckless Tiddler l

h went up as the pistol flare died d

d Tiddler, who, resting principally on his face and on

rt piece about a foot in length embedded in the tough cloth. "Now yer clear; back out of it." And as he

et, followed by a deafening explosion and a red flame. "We've drawn them this time, old man, but I can't make out

and expecting nothing but death for themselves, the two cousins suddenly jumped up under the v

of Dennis, and as the vicious rat-tat of the machine-gun farther down the trench op

from the young lieutenant's lips as he landed on something soft at the bot

hree Germans who had taken refuge in the same place rolled back and lay very still, just as an