XV

XVOUR TURNNo. II platoon had had a bad mauling in their advance, and when they reached their “final objective line” there were left out of the ninety-odd men who had started, one sergeant, one corporal, and fourteen men. But, with the rest of the line, they at once set to work to consolidate, to dig in, to fill the sandbags each man carried, and to line the lip of a shell crater with them. Every man there knew that a counter-attack on their position was practically a certainty. They had not a great many bombs or very much ammunition left; they had been struggling through a wilderness of sticky mud and shell-churned mire all day, moving for all the world like flies across a half-dry fly-paper; they had been without food since dawn, when they had consumed the bully and biscuit of their iron “ration”; they were plastered with a casingof chilly mud from head to foot; they were wet to the skin; brain, body, and bone weary.But they went about the task of consolidating with the greatest vigour they could bring their tired muscles to yield. They worried not at all about the shortage of bombs and ammunition, or lack of food, because they were all by now veterans of the new “planned” warfare, knew that every detail of re-supplying them with all they required had been fully and carefully arranged, that these things were probably even now on the way to them, that reinforcements and working parties would be pushed up to the new line as soon as it was established. So the Sergeant was quite willing to leave all that to work out in its proper sequence, knew that his simple job was to hold the ground they had taken, and, therefore, bent all his mind to that work.But it suddenly appeared that the ground was not as completely taken as he had supposed. A machine-gun close at hand began to bang out a string of running reports; a stream of bullets hissed and whipped andsmacked the ground about him and his party. A spasmodic crackle of rifle-fire started again farther along the line at the same time. The Sergeant paid no heed to that. He and his men had flung down into cover, and dropped spades and trenching tools and sandbags, and whipped up their rifles to return the fire, at the first sound of the machine-gun.The Sergeant peered over the edge of the hole he was in, locating a bobbing head or two and the spurting flashes of the gun, and ducked down again. “They’re in a shell-hole not more’n twenty, thirty yards away,” he said rapidly. “Looks like only a handful. We’ll rush ’em out. Here——” and he went on into quick detailed orders for the rushing. Three minutes later he and his men swarmed out of their shelter and went forward at a scrambling run, the bombers flinging a shower of grenades ahead of them, the bayonet men floundering over the rough ground with weapons at the ready, the Sergeant well in the lead.Their sudden and purposeful rush must have upset the group of Germans, because themachine-gun fire for a moment became erratic, the muzzle jerked this way and that, the bullets whistled wide, and during that same vital moment no bombs were thrown by the Germans; and when at last they did begin to come spinning out, most of them went too far, and the runners were well over them before they had time to explode. In another moment the Sergeant leaped down fairly on top of the machine-gun, his bayonet thrusting through the gunner as he jumped. He shot a second and bayoneted a third, had his shoulder-strap blown away by a rifle at no more than muzzle distance, his sleeve and his haversack ripped open by a bayonet thrust.Then his men swarmed down into the wide crater, and in two minutes the fight was over. There were another few seconds of rapid fire at two or three of the Germans who had jumped out and run for their lives, and that finished the immediate performance. The Sergeant looked round, climbed from the hole, and made a hasty examination of the ground about them.“’Tisn’t as good a crater as we left,” hesaid, “an’ it’s ’way out front o’ the line the others is digging, so we’d best get back. Get a hold o’ that machine-gun an’ all the spare ammunition you can lay hands on. We might find it come in useful. Good job we had the way a Fritz gun works shown us once. Come on.”The men hastily collected all the ammunition they could find and were moving back, when one of them, standing on the edge of the hole, remarked: “We got the top o’ the ridge all right this time. Look at the open flat down there.”The Sergeant turned and looked, and an exclamation broke from him at sight of the view over the ground beyond the ridge. Up to now that ground had been hidden by a haze of smoke from the bursting shells where our barrage was pounding steadily down. But for a minute the smoke had lifted or blown aside, and the Sergeant found himself looking down the long slope of a valley with gently swelling sides, looking right down on to the plain below the ridge. He scanned the lie of the ground rapidly, and in an instant hadmade up his mind. “Hold on there,” he ordered abruptly; “we’ll dig in here instead. Sling that machine-gun back in here and point her out that way. You, Lees, get ’er into action, and rip out a few rounds just to see you got the hang o’ it. Heave those dead Boches out; an’, Corporal, you nip back with half a dozen men and fetch along the tools and sandbags we left there. Slippy now.”The Corporal picked his half-dozen men and vanished, and the Sergeant whipped out a message-book and began to scribble a note. Before he had finished the rifle-fire began to rattle down along the line again, and he thrust the book in his pocket, picked up his rifle, and peered out over the edge of the hole. “There they go, Lees,” he said suddenly. “Way along there on the left front. Pump it into ’em. Don’t waste rounds, though; we may need ’em for our own front in a minute. Come on, Corporal, get down in here. Looks like the start o’ a counter-attack, though I don’t see any of the blighters on our own front. Here, you two, spade out a cut into the next shell-hole there, so’s to link ’em up.Steady that gun, Lees; don’t waste ’em. Get on to your sandbag-fillin’, the others, an’ make a bit o’ a parapet this side.”“We’re a long ways out in front of the rest o’ the line, ain’t we?” said the Corporal.“Yes, I know,” said the Sergeant. “I want to send a message back presently. This is the spot to hold, an’ don’t you forget it. Just look down—hullo, here’s our barrage droppin’ again. Well, it blots out the view, but it’ll be blottin’ out any Germs that try to push us; so hit ’er up, the Gunners. But——” He broke off suddenly, and stared out into the writhing haze of smoke in front of them. “Here they come,” he said sharply. “Now, Lees, get to it. Stand by, you bombers. Range three hundred the rest o’ you, an’ fire steady. Pick your marks. We got no rounds to waste. Now, then——”The rifles began to bang steadily, then at a rapidly increasing rate as the fire failed to stop the advance, and more dim figures after figures came looming up hazily and emerging from the smoke. The machine-gunner held his fire until he could bring his sights on alittle group, fired in short bursts with a side-ways twitch that sprayed the bullets out fan-wise as they went. The rifle-fire out to right and left of them, and almost behind them, swelled to a long, rolling beat with the tattoo of machine-guns rapping through it in gusts, the explosions of grenades rising and falling in erratic bursts.Farther back, the guns were hard at it again, and the shells were screaming and rushing overhead in a ceaseless torrent, the shrapnel to blink a star of flame from the heart of a smoke-cloud springing out in mid-air, the high explosive crashing down in ponderous bellowings, up-flung vivid splashes of fire and spouting torrents of smoke, flying mud and earth clods. There were German shells, too, shrieking over, and adding their share to the indescribable uproar, crashing down along the line, and spraying out in circles of fragments, the smaller bits whistling and whizzing viciously, the larger hurtling and humming like monster bees.“Them shells of ours is comm’ down a sight too close to us, Sergeant,” yelled theCorporal, glancing up as a shrapnel shell cracked sharply almost overhead and sprayed its bullets, scattering and splashing along the wet ground out in front of them.“All right—it’s shrap,” the Sergeant yelled back. “Bullets is pitchin’ well forrad.”The Corporal swore and ducked hastily from thewhitt-whittof a couple of bullets past their ears. “Them was from behind us,” he shouted. “We’re too blazin’ far out in front o’ the line here. Wot’s the good——”“Here,” said the Sergeant to a man who staggered back from the rough parapet, right hand clutched on a blood-streaming left shoulder, “whip a field dressin’ round that, an’ try an’ crawl back to them behind us. Find an officer, if you can, an’ tell him we’re out in front of ’im. An’ tell ’im I’m going to hang on to the position we have here till my blanky teeth pull out.”“Wot’s the good——” began the Corporal again, ceasing fire to look round at the Sergeant.“Never mind the good now,” said the Sergeantshortly, as he recharged his magazine. “You’ll see after—if we live long enough.” He levelled and aimed his rifle. “An’ we won’t do that if you stand there”—(he fired a shot and jerked the breech open)—“jawin’ instead”—(he slammed the breech-bolt home and laid cheek to stock again)—“o’ shootin’”; and he snapped another shot.On their own immediate front the attack slackened, and died away, but along the line a little the Sergeant’s group could see a swarm of men charging in. The Sergeant immediately ordered the machine-gun and every rifle to take the attackers in enfilade. For the next few minutes every man shot as fast as he could load and pull trigger, and the captured machine-gun banged and spat a steady stream of fire. The Sergeant helped until he saw the attack dying out again, its remnants fading into the smoke haze. Then he pulled his book out, and wrote his message: “Am holding crater position with captured machine-gun and eight men of No. 2 Platoon. Good position, allowing enfilade fire on attack, and with command of farther slopes.Urgently require men, ammunition, and bombs, but will hold out to the finish.”He sent the note back by a couple of wounded men, and set his party about strengthening their position as far as possible. In ten minutes another attack commenced, and the men took up their rifles and resumed their steady fire. But this time the field-grey figures pressed in, despite the pouring fire and the pounding shells, and, although they were held and checked and driven to taking cover in shell-holes on the Sergeant’s immediate front, they were within grenade-throwing distance there, and the German “potato-masher” bombs and the British Mills’ began to twirl and curve over to and fro, and burst in shattering detonations. Three more of the Sergeant’s party were wounded inside as many minutes, but every man who could stand on his feet, well or wounded, rose at the Sergeant’s warning yell to meet the rush of about a dozen men who swung aside from a large group that had pressed in past their flank. The rush was met by a few quick shots, but the ammunition for the machine-gun hadrun out, and of bombs even there were only a few left. So, in the main, the rush was met with the bayonet—and killed with it. The Sergeant still held his crater, but now he had only two unwounded men left to help him.The Corporal, nursing a gashed cheek and spitting mouthfuls of blood, shouted at him again, “Y’ ain’t goin’ to try ’ hold on longer, surely. We’ve near shot the last round away.”“I’ll hold it,” said the Sergeant grimly, “if I have to do it myself wi’ my bare fists.”But he cast anxious looks behind, in hope of a sight of reinforcements, and knew that if they did not come before another rush he and his party were done. His tenacity had its due reward. Help did come—men and ammunition and bombs and a couple of machine-guns—and not three minutes before the launching of another attack. An officer was with the party, and took command, but he was killed inside the first minute, and the Sergeant again took hold.Again the attack was made all along the line, and again, under the ferocious fire of thereinforced line, it was beaten back. The line had at the last minute been hinged outward behind the Sergeant, and so joined up with him that it formed a sharpish angle, with the Sergeant’s crater at its point. The enfilade fire of this forward-swung portion and the two machine-guns in the crater did a good deal to help cut down the main attack.When it was well over, and the attack had melted away, the Captain of the Sergeant’s Company pushed up into the crater.“Who’s in charge here?” he asked. “You, Sergeant? Your note came back, and we sent you help; but you were taking a long risk out here. Didn’t you know you had pushed out beyond your proper point? And why didn’t you retire when you found yourself in the air?”The Sergeant turned and pointed out where the thinning smoke gave a view of the wide open flats of the plain beyond the ridge.“I got a look o’ that, sir,” he said, “and I just thought a commanding position like this was worth sticking a lot to hang to.”“Jove! and you were right,” said the Captain,looking gloatingly on the flats, and went on to add other and warmer words of praise.But it was to his corporal, a little later, that the Sergeant really explained his hanging on to the point.“Look at it!” he said enthusiastically; “look at the view you get!”The Corporal viewed dispassionately for a moment the dreary expanse below, the shell-churned morass and mud, wandering rivulets and ditches, shell-wrecked fragments of farms and buildings, the broken, bare-stripped poles of trees.“Bloomin’ great, ain’t it?” he mumbled disgustedly, through his bandaged jaws. “Fair beautiful. Makes you think you’d like to come ’ere after the war an’ build a ’ouse, an’ sit lookin’ out on it always—Idon’tthink.”“Exactly what I said the second I saw it,” said the Sergeant, and chuckled happily. “Only my house’d be a nice little trench an’ a neat little dug-out, an’ be for duration o’ war. Think o’ it, man—just think o’ this winter, with us up here along the ridge, an’Fritz down in his trenches below there, up to the middle in mud. Him cursin’ Creation, and strugglin’ to pump his trenches out; and us sitting nicely up here in the dry, snipin’ down in enfilade along his trench, and pumpin’ the water out of our trenches down on to the flat to drown him out.”The Sergeant chuckled again, slapped his hands together. “I’ve been havin’ that side of it back in the salient there for best part o’ two years, off and on. Fritz has been up top, keepin’ his feet dry and watchin’ us gettin’ shelled an’ shot up an’ minnie-werfered to glory—squattin’ up here, smokin’ his pipe an’ takin’ a pot-shot at us, and watchin’ us through his field-glasses, just as he felt like. And now it’s our turn. Don’t let me hear anybody talk about drivin’ the Hun back for miles from here. I don’t want him to go back; I want him to sit down there the whole darn winter, freezin’ an’ drownin’ to death ten times a day. Fritz isn’t go in’ to like that—not any. I am, an’ that’s why I hung like grim death to this look-out point. This is where we come in; this isourturn!”XVIACCORDING TO PLAN“Ratty” Traversdropped his load with a grunt of satisfaction, squatted down on the ground, and tilting his shrapnel helmet back, mopped a streaming brow. As the line in which he had moved dropped to cover, another line rose out of the ground ahead of them and commenced to push forward. Some distance beyond, a wave of kilted Highlanders pressed on at a steady walk up to within about fifty paces of the string of flickering, jumping white patches that marked the edge of the “artillery barrage.”Ratty Travers and the others of the machine-gun company being in support had a good view of the lines attacking ahead of them.“Them Jocks is goin’ along nicely,” said the man who had dropped beside Ratty. Ratty grunted scornfully. “Beautiful,” hesaid. “An’ we’re doin’ wonderful well ourselves. I never remember gettin’ over the No Man’s Land so easy, or seein’ a trench took so quick an’ simple in my life as this one we’re in; or seein’ a’tillery barrage move so nice an’ even and steady to time.”“You’ve seed a lot, Ratty,” said his companion. “But you ain’t seed everything.”“That’s true,” said Ratty. “I’ve never seen a lot o’ grown men playin’ let’s-pretend like a lot of school kids. Just look at that fool wi’ the big drum, Johnny.”Johnny looked and had to laugh. The man with the big drum was lugging it off at the double away from the kilted line, and strung out to either side of him there raced a scattered line of men armed with sticks and biscuit-tins and empty cans. Ratty and his companions were clothed in full fighting kit and equipment, and bore boxes of very real ammunition. In the “trenches” ahead of them, or moving over the open, were other men similarly equipped; rolling back to them came a clash and clatter, a dull prolongedboom-boom-boom. In every detail, so far asthe men were concerned, an attack was in full swing; but there was no yell and crash of falling shells, no piping whistle and sharp crack of bullets, no deafening, shaking thunder of artillery (except that steadyboom-boom), no shell-scorched strip of battered ground. The warm sun shone on trim green fields, on long twisting lines of flags and tapes strung on sticks, on ranks of perspiring men in khaki with rifles and bombs and machine-guns and ammunition and stretchers and all the other accoutrements of battle. There were no signs of death or wounds, none of the horror of war, because this was merely a “practice attack,” a full-dress rehearsal of the real thing, full ten miles behind the front. The trenches were marked out by flags and tapes, the artillery barrage was a line of men hammering biscuit-tins and a big drum, and waving fluttering white flags. The kilts came to a halt fifty paces short of them, and a moment later, the “barrage” sprinted off ahead one or two score yards, halted, and fell to banging and battering tins and drum and waving flags, while the kilts solemnly movedon after them, to halt again at their measured distance until the next “lift” of the “barrage.” It looked sheer child’s play, a silly elaborate game; and yet there was no sign of laughter or play about the men taking part in it—except on the part of Ratty Travers. Ratty was openly scornful. “Ready there,” said a sergeant rising and pocketing the notebook he had been studying. “We’ve only five minutes in this trench. And remember you move half-right when you leave here, an’ the next line o’ flags is the sunk road wi’ six machine-gun emplacements along the edge.”Ratty chuckled sardonically. “I ’ope that in the real thing them machine-guns won’t ‘ave nothing to say to us movin’ half-right across their front,” he said.“They’ve been strafed out wi’ the guns,” said Johnny simply, “an’ the Jocks ’as mopped up any that’s left. We was told that yesterday.”“I dare say,” retorted Ratty. “An’ I hopes the Huns ’ave been careful instructed in the same. It ’ud be a pity if they went an’ did anything to spoil all the plans. But theywouldn’t do that. Oh, no, of course not—Idon’tthink!”He had a good deal more to say in the same strain—with especially biting criticism on the “artillery barrage” and the red-faced big drummer who played lead in it—during the rest of the practice and at the end of it when they lay in their “final objective” and rested, smoking and cooling off with the top buttons of tunics undone, while the officers gathered round the C.O. and listened to criticism and made notes in their books.“I’ll admit,” he said, “they might plan out the trenches here the same as the ones we’re to attack from. It’s this rot o’ layin’ out the Fritz trenches gets me. An’ this attack—it’s about as like a real attack as my gasper’s like a machine-gun. Huh! Wi’ one bloke clockin’ you on a stop-watch, an’ another countin’ the paces between the trenches—Boche trenches a mile behind their front line, mind you—an’ another whackin’ a big drum like a kid in a nursery. An’ all this ‘Go steady here, this is a sharp rise,’ or ’hurry this bit, ’cos most likely it’ll be open to enfiladin’ machine-gunfire,’ or ‘this here’s the sunk road wi’ six machine-gun emplacements.’ Huh! Plunky rot I calls it.”The others heard him in silence or with mild chaffing replies. Ratty was new to this planned-attack game, of course, but since he had been out and taken his whack of the early days, had been wounded, and home, and only lately had come out again, he was entitled to a certain amount of excusing.Johnny summed it up for them. “We’ve moved a bit since the Noove Chapelle days, you know,” he said. “You didn’t have no little lot like this then, did you?” jerking his head at the bristling line of their machine-guns. “An’ you didn’t have creepin’ barrages, an’ more shells than you could fire, eh? Used to lose seventy an’ eighty per cent. o’ the battalion’s strength goin’ over the bags them days, didn’t you? Well, we’ve changed that a bit, thank Gawd. You’ll see the differ presently.”Later on Ratty had to admit a considerable “differ” and a great improvement on old ways. He and his company moved up towardsthe front leisurely and certainly, without haste and without confusion, having the orders detailed overnight for the next day’s march, finding meals cooked and served regularly, travelling by roads obviously known and “detailed” for them, coming at night to camp or billet places left vacant for them immediately before, finding everything planned and prepared, foreseen and provided for. But, although he admitted all this, he stuck to his belief that beyond the front line this carefully-planned moving must cease abruptly. “It’ll be the same plunky old scramble an’ scrap, I’ll bet,” he said. “We’ll see then if all the Fritz trenches is just where we’ve fixed ’em, an’ if we runs to a regular time-table and follows the laid-down route an’ first-turn-to-the-right-an’-mind-the-step-performance we’ve been practisin’.”But it was as they approached the fighting zone, and finally when they found themselves installed in a support trench on the morning of the Push that Ratty came to understand the full difference between old battles and this new style. For days on end he heardsuch gun-fire as he had never dreamed of, heard it continue without ceasing or slackening day and night. By day he saw the distant German ground veiled in a drifting fog-bank of smoke, saw it by night starred with winking and spurting gusts of flame from our high-explosives. He walked or lay on a ground that quivered and trembled under the unceasing shock of our guns’ discharges, covered his eyes at night to shut out the flashing lights that pulsed and throbbed constantly across the sky. On the last march that had brought them into the trenches they had passed through guns and guns and yet again guns, first the huge monsters lurking hidden well back and only a little in advance of the great piles of shells and long roofed sidings crammed with more shells, then farther on past other monsters only less in comparison with those they had seen before, on again past whole batteries of 60-pounders and “six-inch” tucked away in corners of woods or amongst broken houses, and finally up through the field guns packed close in every corner that would more or less hide a battery,or brazenly lined up in the open. They tramped down the long street of a ruined village—a street that was no more than a cleared strip of cobblestones bordered down its length on both sides by the piled or scattered heaps of rubble and brick that had once been rows of houses—with a mad chorus of guns roaring and cracking and banging in numberless scores about them, passed over the open behind the trenches to find more guns ranged battery after battery, and all with sheeting walls of flame jumping and flashing along their fronts. They found and settled into their trench with this unbroken roar of fire bellowing in their ears, a roar so loud and long that it seemed impossible to increase it. When their watches told them it was an hour to the moment they had been warned was the “zero hour,” the fixed moment of the attack, the sound of the gun-fire swelled suddenly and rose to a pitch of fury that eclipsed all that had gone before. The men crouched in their trench listening in awed silence, and as the zero hour approached Ratty clambered and stood where he couldlook over the edge towards the German lines. A sergeant shouted at him angrily to get down, and hadn’t he heard the order to keep under cover? Ratty dropped back beside the others. “Lumme,” he said disgustedly, “I dunno wot this bloomin’ war’s comin’ to. Orders, orders, orders! You mustn’t get plunky well killed nowadays, unless you ’as orders to.”“There they go,” said Johnny suddenly, and all strained their ears for the sound of rattling rifle-fire that came faintly through the roll of the guns. “An’ here they come,” said Ratty quickly, and all crouched low and listened to the rising roar of a heavy shell approaching, the heavycr-r-rumpof its fall. A message passed along, “Ready there. Move in five minutes.” And at five minutes to the tick, they rose and began to pass along the trench.“Know where we are, Ratty?” asked Johnny. Ratty looked about him. “How should I know?” he shouted back, “I was never ’ere before.”“You oughter,” returned Johnny. “Thisis the line we started from back in practice attack—the one that was taped out along by the stream.”“I’m a fat lot better for knowin’ it too,” said Ratty sarcastically, and trudged on. They passed slowly forward and along branching trenches until they came at last to the front line, from which, after a short rest, they climbed and hoisted their machine-guns out into the open. From here for the first time they could see something of the battleground; but could see nothing of the battle except a drifting haze of smoke, and, just disappearing into it, a shadowy line of figures. The thunder of the guns continued, and out in front they could hear now the crackle of rifle fire, the sharp detonations of grenades. There were far fewer shells falling about the old “neutral ground” than Ratty had expected, and even comparatively few bullets piping over and past them. They reached the tumbled wreckage of shell-holes and splintered planks that marked what had been the front German line, clambered through this, and pushed on stumbling andclimbing in and out the shell-holes that riddled the ground. “Where’s the Buffs that’s supposed to be in front o’ us,” shouted Ratty, and ducked hastily into a deep shell-hole at the warning screech of an approaching shell. It crashed down somewhere near and a shower of dirt and earth rained down on him. He climbed out. “Should be ahead about a——here’s some o’ them now wi’ prisoners,” said Johnny. They had a hurried glimpse of a huddled group of men in grey with their hands well up over their heads, running, stumbling, half falling and recovering, but always keeping their hands hoisted well up. There may have been a full thirty of them, and they were being shepherded back by no more than three or four men with bayonets gleaming on their rifles. They disappeared into the haze, and the machine-gunners dropped down into a shallow twisting depression and pressed on along it. “This is the communication trench that used to be taped out along the edge o’ that cornfield in practice attack,” said Johnny, when they halted a moment. “Trench?” saidRatty, glancing along it, “Strewth!” The trench was gone, was no more than a wide shallow depression, a tumbled gutter a foot or two below the level of the ground; and even the gutter in places was lost in a patch of broken earth-heaps and craters. It was best traced by the dead that lay in it, by the litter of steel helmets, rifles, bombs, gas-masks, bayonets, water-bottles, arms and equipment of every kind strewed along it.By now Ratty had lost all sense of direction or location, but Johnny at his elbow was always able to keep him informed. Ratty at first refused to accept his statements, but was convinced against all argument, and it was always clear from the direct and unhesitating fashion in which they were led that those in command knew where they were and where to go. “We should pass three trees along this trench somewhere soon,” Johnny would say, and presently, sure enough, they came to one stump six foot high and two splintered butts just showing above the earth. They reached a wide depression, and Johnny pointed and shouted, “The sunk road,” and looking round,pointed again to some whitish-grey masses broken, overturned, almost buried in the tumbled earth, the remains of concrete machine-gun emplacements which Ratty remembered had been marked somewhere back there on the practice ground by six marked boards. “Six,” shouted Johnny, and grinned triumphantly at the doubter.The last of Ratty’s doubts as to the correctness of battle plans, even of the German lines, vanished when they came to a bare stretch of ground which Johnny reminded him was where they had been warned they would most likely come under enfilading machine-gun fire. They halted on the edge of this patch to get their wind, and watched some stretcher-bearers struggling to cross and a party of men digging furiously to make a line of linked-up shell-holes, while the ground about them jumped and splashed under the hailing of bullets.“Enfiladin’ fire,” said Ratty. “Should think it was too. Why the ’ell don’t they silence the guns doin’ it?”“Supposed to be in a clump o’ wood overthere,” said Johnny. “And it ain’t due to be took for an hour yet.”The word passed along, and they rose and began to cross the open ground amongst the raining bullets. “There’s our objective,” shouted Johnny as they ran. “That rise—come into action there.” Ratty stared aghast at the rise, and at the spouting columns of smoke and dirt that leaped from it under a steady fall of heavy shells. “That,” he screeched back, “Gorstrewth. Good-bye us then.” But he ran on as well as he could under the weight of the gun on his shoulder. They were both well out to the left of their advancing line and Ratty was instinctively flinching from the direct route into those gusts of flame and smoke. “Keep up,” yelled Johnny. “Remember the trench. You’ll miss the end of it.” Ratty recalled vaguely the line of flags and tape that had wriggled over the practice ground to the last position where they had halted each day and brought their guns into mimic action. He knew he would have slanted to the right to hit the trench end there, so here he alsoslanted right and presently stumbled thankfully into the broken trench, and pushed along it up the rise. At the top he found himself looking over a gentle slope, the foot of which was veiled in an eddying mist of smoke. A heavy shell burst with a terrifying crash and sent him reeling from the shock. He sat down with a bump, shaken and for the moment dazed, but came to himself with Johnny’s voice bawling in his ear, “Come on, man, come on. Hurt? Quick then—yer gun.” He staggered up and towards an officer whom he could see waving frantically at him and opening and shutting his mouth in shouts that were lost in the uproar. He thrust forward and into a shell-hole beside Johnny and the rest of the gun detachment. His sergeant jumped down beside them shouting and pointing out into the smoke wreaths. “See the wood ... six hundred ... lay on the ground-line—they’re counter-attack——” He stopped abruptly and fell sliding in a tumbled heap down the crater side on top of the gun. The officer ran back mouthing unheard angry shouts at them again. Ratty was gettingangry himself. How could a man get into action with a fellow falling all over his gun like that? They dragged the sergeant’s twitching body clear and Ratty felt a pang of regret for his anger. He’d been a good chap, the sergeant.... But anger swallowed him again as he dragged his gun clear. It was drenched with blood. “Nice bizness,” he said savagely, “if my breech action’s clogged up.” A loaded belt slipped into place and he brought the gun into action with a savage jerk on the loading lever, looked over his sights, and layed them on the edge of the wood he could just dimly see through the smoke. He could see nothing to fire at—cursed smoke was so thick—but the others were firing hard—must be something there. He pressed his thumbs on the lever and his gun began to spurt a stream of fire and lead, the belt racing and clicking through, the breech clacking smoothly, the handles jarring sharply in his fingers.The hillock was still under heavy shell-fire. They had been warned in practice attack that there would probably be shell-fire, and hereit was, shrieking, crashing, tearing the wrecked ground to fresh shapes of wreckage, spouting in fountains of black smoke and earth, whistling and hurtling in jagged fragments, hitting solidly and bursting in whirlwinds of flame and smoke. Ratty had no time to think of the shells. He strained his eyes over the sights on the foot of the dimly seen trees, held his gun steady and spitting its jets of flame and lead, until word came to him, somehow or from somewhere to cease firing. The attack had been wiped out, he heard said. He straightened his bent shoulders and discovered with immense surprise that one shoulder hurt, that his jacket was soaked with blood.“Nothing more than a good Blighty one,” said the bearer who tied him up. “Keep you home two-three months mebbe.”“Good enough,” said Ratty. “I’ll be back in time to see the finish,” and lit a cigarette contentedly.Back in the Aid Post later he heard from one of the Jocks who had been down there in the smoke somewhere between the machine-gunsand the wood, that the front line was already well consolidated. He heard too that the German counter-attack had been cut to pieces, and that the open ground before our new line front was piled with their dead. “You fellies was just late enough wi’ your machine-guns,” said the Highlander. “In anither three-fower meenits they’d a been right on top o’ us.”“Late be blowed,” said Ratty. “We was on the right spot exackly at the programme time o’ the plan. We’d rehearsed the dash thing an’ clocked it too often for me not to be sure o’ that. We was there just when we was meant to be, an’ that was just when they knew we’d be wanted. Whole plunky attack went like clockwork, far’s our bit o’ the plans went.”But it was two days later and snug in bed in a London hospital, when he had read the dispatches describing the battle, that he had his last word on “planned attacks.”“Lumme,” he said to the next bed, “I likes this dispatch of ole ’Indenburg’s. Good mile an’ a half we pushed ’em back, an’ held allthe ground, an’ took 6,000 prisoners; an’, says ’Indenburg, ‘the British attack was completely repulsed ... only a few crater positions were abandoned by us according to plan.’”He dropped the paper and grinned. “Accordin’ to plan,” he said. “That’s true enough. But ’e forgot to say it was the same as it always is—accordin’ to the plan that was made by ‘Aig an’ us.”XVIIDOWN IN HUNLANDItwas cold—bitterly, bitingly, fiercely cold. It was also at intervals wet, and misty, and snowy, as the ’plane ran by turns through various clouds; but it was the cold that was uppermost in the minds of pilot and observer as they flew through the darkness. They were on a machine of the night-bombing squadron, and the “Night-Fliers” in winter weather take it more or less as part of the night’s work that they are going to be out in cold and otherwise unpleasant weather conditions; but the cold this night was, as the pilot put it in his thoughts, “over the odds.”It was the Night-Fliers’ second trip over Hunland. The first trip had been a short one to a near objective, because at the beginning of the night the weather looked too doubtful to risk a long trip. But before they had come back the weather had cleared, and the SquadronCommander, after full deliberation, had decided to chance the long trip and bomb a certain place which he knew it was urgent should be damaged as much and as soon as possible.All this meant that the Fliers had the shortest possible space of time on the ground between the two trips. Their machines were loaded up with fresh supplies of bombs just as quickly as it could be done, the petrol and oil tanks refilled, expended rounds of ammunition for the machine-guns replaced. Then, one after another, the machines steered out into the darkness across the ’drome ground towards a twinkle of light placed to guide them, wheeled round, gave the engine a preliminary whirl, steadied it down, opened her out again, and one by one at intervals lumbered off at gathering speed, and soared off up into the darkness.The weather held until the objective was reached, although glances astern showed ominous clouds banking up and darkening the sky behind them. The bombs were loosed and seen to strike in leaping gusts of flame on theground below, while searchlights stabbed up into the sky and groped round to find the raiders, and the Hun “Archies” spat sharp tongues of flame up at them. Several times the shells burst near enough to be heard above the roar of the engine; but one after another the Night Fliers “dropped the eggs” and wheeled and drove off for home, the observers leaning over and picking up any visible speck of light or the flickering spurts of a machine-gun’s fire and loosing off quick bursts of fire at these targets. But every pilot knew too well the meaning of those banking clouds to the west, and was in too great haste to get back to spend time hunting targets for their machine-guns; and each opened his engine out and drove hard to reach the safety of our own lines before thick weather could catch and bewilder them.The leaders had escaped fairly lightly—“Atcha” and “Beta” having only a few wides to dodge; but their followers kept catching it hotter and hotter.The “Osca” was the last machine to arrive at the objective and deliver her bombsand swing for home, and because she was the last she came in for the fully awakened defence’s warmest welcome, and wheeled with searchlights hunting for her, with Archie shells coughing round, with machine-guns spitting fire and their bulletszizz-izz-ippingup past her, with “flaming onions” curving up in streaks of angry red fire and falling blazing to earth again. A few of the bullets ripped and rapped viciously through the fabric of her wings, but she suffered no further damage, although the fire was hot enough and close enough to make her pilot and observer breathe sighs of relief as they droned out into the darkness and left all the devilment of fire and lights astern.The word of the Night-Fliers’ raid had evidently gone abroad through the Hun lines however, and as they flew west they could see searchlight after light switching and scything through the dark in search of them. Redmond, or “Reddie,” the pilot, was a good deal more concerned over the darkening sky, and the cold that by now was piercing to his bones, than he was over the searchlights orthe chance of running into further Archie fire. He lifted the “Osca” another 500 feet as he flew, and drove on with his eyes on the compass and on the cloud banks ahead in turn.Flying conditions do not lend themselves to conversation between pilot and observer, but once or twice the two exchanged remarks, very brief and boiled-down remarks, on their position and the chances of reaching the lines before they ran into “the thick.” That a thick was coming was painfully clear to both. The sky by now was completely darkened, and the earth below was totally and utterly lost to sight. The pilot had his compass, and his compass only, left to guide him, and he kept a very close and attentive eye on that and his instrument denoting height. Their bombing objective had been a long way behind the German lines, but Reddie and “Walk” Jones, the observer, were already beginning to congratulate themselves on their nearness to the lines and the probability of escaping the storm, when the storm suddenly whirled down upon them.It came without warning, although warningwould have been of little use, since they could do nothing but continue to push for home. One minute they were flying, in darkness it is true, but still in a clear air; the next they were simply barging blindly through a storm of rain which probably poured straight down to earth, but which to them, flying at some scores of miles per hour, was driving level and with the force of whip cuts full in their faces. Both pilot and observer were blinded. The water cataracting on their goggles cut off all possibility of sight, and Reddie could not even see the compass in front of him or the gleam of light that illuminated it. He held the machine as steady and straight on her course as instinct and a sense of direction would allow him, and after some minutes they passed clear of the rain-storm. Everything was streaming wet—their faces, their goggles, their clothes, and everything they touched in the machine. Reddie mopped the wet off his compass and peered at it a moment, and then with an angry exclamation pushed rudder and joy-stick over and swung round to a direction fairlyopposite to the one they had been travelling. Apparently he had turned completely round in the minutes through the rain—once round at least, and Heaven only knew how many more times.They flew for a few minutes in comparatively clear weather, and then, quite suddenly, they whirled into a thick mist cloud. At first both Reddie and “Walk” thought it was snow, so cold was the touch of the wet on their faces; but even when they found it was no more than a wet mist cloud they were little better off, because again both were completely blinded so far as seeing how or where they were flying went. Reddie developed a sudden fear that he was holding the machine’s nose down, and in a quick revulsion pulled the joy-stick back until he could feel her rear and swoop upwards. He was left with a sense of feeling only to guide him. He could see no faintest feature of the instrument-board in front of him, had to depend entirely on his sense of touch and feel and instinct to know whether the “Osca” was on alevel keel, flying forward, or up or down, or lying right over on either wing tip.The mist cleared, or they flew clear of it, as suddenly as they had entered it, and Reddie found again that he had lost direction, was flying north instead of west. He brought the ’bus round again and let her drop until the altimeter showed a bare two hundred feet above the ground and peered carefully down for any indication of his whereabouts. He could see nothing—blank nothing, below, or above, or around him. He lifted again to the thousand-foot mark and drove on towards the west. He figured that they ought to be coming somewhere near the lines now, but better be safe than sorry, and he’d get well clear of Hunland before he chanced coming down.Then the snow shut down on them. If they had been blinded before, they were doubly blind now. It was not only that the whirling flakes of snow shut out any sight in front of or around them; it drove clinging against their faces, their glasses, their bodies, and froze and was packed hard by the wind of their own speed as they flew. And it was cold,bone- and marrow-piercing cold. Reddie lost all sense of direction again, all sense of whether he was flying forward, or up or down, right side or wrong side up. He even lost any sense of time; and when the scud cleared enough for him to make out the outline of his instruments he could not see the face of his clock, his height or speed recorders, or anything else, until he had scraped the packed snow off them.But this time, according to the compass, he was flying west and in the right direction. So much he just had time to see when they plunged again into another whirling smother of fine snow. They flew through that for minutes which might have been seconds or hours for all the pilot knew. He could see nothing through his clogged goggles, that blurred up faster than he could wipe them clear; he could hear nothing except, dully, the roar of his engine; he could feel nothing except the grip of the joy-stick, numbly, through his thick gloves. He kept the “Osca” flying level by sheer sense of feel, and at times had all he could do to fight back a wave of panic whichrushed on him with a belief that the machine was side-slipping or falling into a spin that would bring him crashing to earth.When the snow cleared again and he was able to see his lighted instruments he made haste to brush them clear of snow and peer anxiously at them. He found he was a good thousand feet up and started at once to lift a bit higher for safety’s sake. By the compass he was still flying homeward, and by the time—the time—he stared hard at his clock ... and found it was stopped. But the petrol in his main tank was almost run out, and according to that he ought to be well over the British lines—if he had kept anything like a straight course. He held a brief and shouted conversation with his observer. “Don’t know where I am. Lost. Think we’re over our lines.”“Shoot a light, eh?” answered the observer, “and try’n’ land. I’m frozen stiff.”They both peered anxiously out round as their Verey light shot out and floated down; but they could see no sign of a flare or an answering light. They fired another signal,and still had no reply; and then, “I’m going down,” yelled the pilot, shutting off his engine and letting the machine glide down in a slow sweeping circle. He could see nothing of the ground when the altimeter showed 500 feet, nor at 300, nor at 200, so opened the throttle and picked up speed again. “Shove her down,” yelled the observer. “More snow coming.”Another Verey light, shot straight down overboard, showed a glimpse of a grass field, and Reddie swung gently round, and slid downward again. At the same time he fired a landing light fixed out under his lower wing-tip in readiness for just such an occasion as this, and by its glowing vivid white light made a fairly good landing on rough grass land. He shut the engine off at once, because he had no idea how near he was to the edge of the field or what obstacles they might bump if they taxied far, and the machine came quickly to rest. The two men sat still for a minute breathing a sigh of thankfulness that they were safe to ground, then turned and looked at each other in the dying lightof the flare. Stiffly they stood up, climbed clumsily out of their places, and down on to the wet ground. Another flurry of snow was falling, but now that they were at rest the snow was floating and drifting gently down instead of beating in their faces with hurricane force as it did when they were flying.Reddie flapped his arms across his chest and stamped his numbed feet. Walk Jones pulled his gloves off and breathed on his stiff fingers. “I’m fair froze,” he mumbled. “Wonder where we are, and how far from the ‘drome?”“Lord knows,” returned Reddie. “I don’t know even where the line is—ahead or astern, right hand or left.”“Snow’s clearing again,” said Jones. “Perhaps we’ll get a bearing then, and I’ll go ’n’ hunt for a camp or a cottage, or anyone that’ll give us a hot drink.”“Wait a bit,” said Reddie. “Stand where you are and let’s give a yell. Some sentry or someone’s bound to hear us. Snow’s stopping all right; but, Great Scott! isn’t it dark.”Presently they lifted their voices and yelled an “Ahoy” together at the pitch of their lungs. There was no answer, and after a pause they yelled again, still without audible result.“Oh, curse!” said Jones, shivering. “I’m not going to hang about here yelping like a lost dog. And we might hunt an hour for a cottage. I’m going to get aboard again and loose off a few rounds from my machine-gun into the ground. That will stir somebody up and bring ’em along.”“There’s the line,” said Reddie suddenly. “Look!” and he pointed to where a faint glow rose and fell, lit and faded, along the horizon. “And the guns,” he added, as they saw a sheet of light jump somewhere in the distance and heard thebumpof the report. Other gun-flashes flickered and beat across the dark sky. “Funny,” said Reddie; “I’d have sworn I turned round as we came down, and I thought the lines were dead the other way.”The observer was fumbling about to get his foot in the step. “I thought they were wayout to the right,” he said. “But I don’t care a curse where they are. I want a camp or a French cottage with coffee on the stove. I’ll see if I can’t shoot somebody awake.”“Try one more shout first,” said Reddie, and they shouted together again.“Got ’im,” said Reddie joyfully, as a faint hail came in response, and Jones took his foot off the step and began to fumble under his coat for a torch. “Here!” yelled Reddie. “This way! Here!”They heard the answering shouts draw nearer, and then, just as Jones found his torch and was pulling it out from under his coat, Reddie clutched at his arm. “What—what was it——” he gasped. “Did you hear what they called?”“No, couldn’t understand,” said Jones in some surprise at the other’s agitation. “They’re French, I suppose; farm people, most like.”“It wasGerman,” said Reddie hurriedly. “There again, hear that?We’ve dropped in Hunland.”“Hu-Hunland!” stammered Jones; thendesperately, “It can’t be. You sure it isn’t French—Flemish, perhaps?”“Flemish—here,” said Reddie, dismissing the idea, as Jones admitted he might well do, so far south in the line. “I know little enough German, but I know French well enough; and that’s not French. We’re done in, Walk.”“Couldn’t we bolt for it,” said Walk, looking hurriedly round. “It’s dark, and we know where the lines are.”“What hope of getting through them?” said Reddie, speaking in quick whispers. “But we’ve got a better way. We’ll make a try. Here, quickly, and quiet as you can—get to the prop and swing it when I’m ready. We’ll chance a dash for it.”Both knew the chances against them, knew that in front of the machine might lie a ditch, a tree, a hedge, a score of things that would trip them as they taxied to get speed to rise; they knew too that the Germans were coming closer every moment, that they might be on them before they could get the engine started, that they would probably start shooting at the first sound of her start. All these thingsand a dozen others raced through their minds in an instant; but neither hesitated, both moved promptly and swiftly. Reddie clambered up and into his seat; Walk Jones jumped to the propeller, and began to wind it backwards to “suck in” the petrol to the cylinders. “When she starts, jump to the wing-tip and try ’n’ swing her round,” called Reddie in quick low tones. “It’ll check her way. Then you must jump for it, and hang on and climb in as we go. Yell when you’re aboard. All ready now.”A shout came out of the darkness—a shout and an obvious question in German. “Contact,” said Walk Jones, and swung the propeller his hardest. He heard the whirr of the starter as Reddie twirled it rapidly. “Off,” called Jones as he saw the engine was not giving sign of life, and “Off” answered Reddie, cutting off the starting current.Another shout came, and with it this time what sounded like an imperative command. Reddie cursed his lack of knowledge of German. He could have held them in play a minute if—— “Contact,” came Walk’s voiceagain. “Contact,” he answered, and whirled the starter madly again. There was still no movement, no spark of life from the engine. Reddie groaned, and Walk Jones, sweating despite the cold over his exertions on the propeller, wound it back again and swung it forward with all his weight. His thick leather coat hampered him. He tore it off and flung it to the ground, and tried again.So they tried and failed, tried and failed, time and again, while all the time the shouts were coming louder and from different points, as if a party had split up and was searching the field. A couple of electric torches threw dancing patches of light on the ground, lifted occasionally and flashed round. One was coming straight towards them, and Reddie with set teeth waited the shout of discovery he knew must come presently, and cursed Walk’s slowness at the “prop.”Again on the word he whirled the starter, and this time “Whur-r-r-rum,” answered the engine, suddenly leaping to life; “Whur-r-r-ROO-OO-OO-OOM-ur-r-r-umph,” as Reddieeased and opened the throttle. He heard a babel of shouts and yells, and saw the light-patches come dancing on the run towards them. A sudden recollection of the only two German words he knew came to him. “Ja wohl,” he yelled at the pitch of his voice, “Ja wohl”; then in lower hurried tones, “Swing her, Walk; quick, swing her,” and opened the engine out again. The running lights stopped for a minute at his yell, and Walk Jones jumped to the wing-tip, shouted “Right!” and hung on while Reddie started to taxi the machine forward. His weight and leverage brought her lumbering round, the roar of engine and propeller rising and sinking as Reddie manipulated the throttle, and Reddie yelling his “Ja wohl,” every time the noise died down.“Get in, Walk; get aboard,” he shouted, when the nose was round and pointing back over the short stretch they had taxied on landing, and which he therefore knew was clear running for at least a start. He heard another order screamed in German, and next instant thebangof a rifle, not more apparentlythan a score of yards away. He kept the machine lumbering forward, restraining himself from opening his engine out, waiting in an agony of apprehension for Walk’s shout. He felt the machine lurch and sway, and the kicking scramble his observer made to board her, heard next instant his yelling “Right-oh!” and opened the throttle full as another couple of rifles bang-banged.The rifles had little terror either for him or the observer, because both knew there were bigger and deadlier risks to run in the next few seconds. There were still desperately long odds against their attempt succeeding. In the routine method of starting a machine, chocks are placed in front of the wheels and the engine is given a short full-power run and a longer easier one to warm the engine and be sure all is well; then the chocks are pulled away and she rolls off, gathering speed as she goes, until she has enough for her pilot to lift her into the air. Here, their engine was stone cold, they knew nothing of what lay in front of them, might crash into something before they left the ground, mightrise, and even then catch some house or tree-top, and travelling at the speed they would by then have attained—well, the Lord help them!Reddie had to chance everything, and yet throw away no shadow of a chance. He opened the throttle wide, felt the machine gather speed, bumping and jolting horribly over the rough field, tried to peer down at the ground to see how fast they moved, could see nothing, utterly black nothing, almost panicked for one heart-stilling instant as he looked ahead again and thought he saw the blacker shadow of something solid in front of him, clenched his teeth and held straight on until he felt by the rush of wind on his face he had way enough, and pulled the joy-stick in to him. With a sigh of relief he felt the jolting change to a smooth swift rush, held his breath, and with a pull on the stick zoomed her up, levelled her out again (should clear anything but a tall tree now), zoomed her up again. He felt a hand thumping on his shoulder, heard Walk’s wild exultant yell—“‘Ra-a-ay!” and, still lifting her steadily,swung his machine’s nose for the jumping lights that marked the trenches.They landed safe on their own ’drome ground half an hour after. The officer whose duty it was for the night to look after the landing-ground and light the flares in answer to the returning pilots’ signals, walked over to them as they came to rest.“Hullo, you two,” he said. “Where th’ blazes you been till this time! We’d just about put you down as missing.”Reddie and Walk had stood up in their cock-pits and, without a spoken word, were solemnly shaking hands.Reddie looked overboard at the officer on the ground. “You may believe it, Johnny, or you may not,” he said, “but we’ve been down into Hunland.”“Down into hell!” said Johnny. “Quit jokin’. What kept you so late?”“You’ve said it, Johnny,” said Reddie soberly. “Down into hell—and out again.”They shook hands again, solemnly.

XVOUR TURNNo. II platoon had had a bad mauling in their advance, and when they reached their “final objective line” there were left out of the ninety-odd men who had started, one sergeant, one corporal, and fourteen men. But, with the rest of the line, they at once set to work to consolidate, to dig in, to fill the sandbags each man carried, and to line the lip of a shell crater with them. Every man there knew that a counter-attack on their position was practically a certainty. They had not a great many bombs or very much ammunition left; they had been struggling through a wilderness of sticky mud and shell-churned mire all day, moving for all the world like flies across a half-dry fly-paper; they had been without food since dawn, when they had consumed the bully and biscuit of their iron “ration”; they were plastered with a casingof chilly mud from head to foot; they were wet to the skin; brain, body, and bone weary.But they went about the task of consolidating with the greatest vigour they could bring their tired muscles to yield. They worried not at all about the shortage of bombs and ammunition, or lack of food, because they were all by now veterans of the new “planned” warfare, knew that every detail of re-supplying them with all they required had been fully and carefully arranged, that these things were probably even now on the way to them, that reinforcements and working parties would be pushed up to the new line as soon as it was established. So the Sergeant was quite willing to leave all that to work out in its proper sequence, knew that his simple job was to hold the ground they had taken, and, therefore, bent all his mind to that work.But it suddenly appeared that the ground was not as completely taken as he had supposed. A machine-gun close at hand began to bang out a string of running reports; a stream of bullets hissed and whipped andsmacked the ground about him and his party. A spasmodic crackle of rifle-fire started again farther along the line at the same time. The Sergeant paid no heed to that. He and his men had flung down into cover, and dropped spades and trenching tools and sandbags, and whipped up their rifles to return the fire, at the first sound of the machine-gun.The Sergeant peered over the edge of the hole he was in, locating a bobbing head or two and the spurting flashes of the gun, and ducked down again. “They’re in a shell-hole not more’n twenty, thirty yards away,” he said rapidly. “Looks like only a handful. We’ll rush ’em out. Here——” and he went on into quick detailed orders for the rushing. Three minutes later he and his men swarmed out of their shelter and went forward at a scrambling run, the bombers flinging a shower of grenades ahead of them, the bayonet men floundering over the rough ground with weapons at the ready, the Sergeant well in the lead.Their sudden and purposeful rush must have upset the group of Germans, because themachine-gun fire for a moment became erratic, the muzzle jerked this way and that, the bullets whistled wide, and during that same vital moment no bombs were thrown by the Germans; and when at last they did begin to come spinning out, most of them went too far, and the runners were well over them before they had time to explode. In another moment the Sergeant leaped down fairly on top of the machine-gun, his bayonet thrusting through the gunner as he jumped. He shot a second and bayoneted a third, had his shoulder-strap blown away by a rifle at no more than muzzle distance, his sleeve and his haversack ripped open by a bayonet thrust.Then his men swarmed down into the wide crater, and in two minutes the fight was over. There were another few seconds of rapid fire at two or three of the Germans who had jumped out and run for their lives, and that finished the immediate performance. The Sergeant looked round, climbed from the hole, and made a hasty examination of the ground about them.“’Tisn’t as good a crater as we left,” hesaid, “an’ it’s ’way out front o’ the line the others is digging, so we’d best get back. Get a hold o’ that machine-gun an’ all the spare ammunition you can lay hands on. We might find it come in useful. Good job we had the way a Fritz gun works shown us once. Come on.”The men hastily collected all the ammunition they could find and were moving back, when one of them, standing on the edge of the hole, remarked: “We got the top o’ the ridge all right this time. Look at the open flat down there.”The Sergeant turned and looked, and an exclamation broke from him at sight of the view over the ground beyond the ridge. Up to now that ground had been hidden by a haze of smoke from the bursting shells where our barrage was pounding steadily down. But for a minute the smoke had lifted or blown aside, and the Sergeant found himself looking down the long slope of a valley with gently swelling sides, looking right down on to the plain below the ridge. He scanned the lie of the ground rapidly, and in an instant hadmade up his mind. “Hold on there,” he ordered abruptly; “we’ll dig in here instead. Sling that machine-gun back in here and point her out that way. You, Lees, get ’er into action, and rip out a few rounds just to see you got the hang o’ it. Heave those dead Boches out; an’, Corporal, you nip back with half a dozen men and fetch along the tools and sandbags we left there. Slippy now.”The Corporal picked his half-dozen men and vanished, and the Sergeant whipped out a message-book and began to scribble a note. Before he had finished the rifle-fire began to rattle down along the line again, and he thrust the book in his pocket, picked up his rifle, and peered out over the edge of the hole. “There they go, Lees,” he said suddenly. “Way along there on the left front. Pump it into ’em. Don’t waste rounds, though; we may need ’em for our own front in a minute. Come on, Corporal, get down in here. Looks like the start o’ a counter-attack, though I don’t see any of the blighters on our own front. Here, you two, spade out a cut into the next shell-hole there, so’s to link ’em up.Steady that gun, Lees; don’t waste ’em. Get on to your sandbag-fillin’, the others, an’ make a bit o’ a parapet this side.”“We’re a long ways out in front of the rest o’ the line, ain’t we?” said the Corporal.“Yes, I know,” said the Sergeant. “I want to send a message back presently. This is the spot to hold, an’ don’t you forget it. Just look down—hullo, here’s our barrage droppin’ again. Well, it blots out the view, but it’ll be blottin’ out any Germs that try to push us; so hit ’er up, the Gunners. But——” He broke off suddenly, and stared out into the writhing haze of smoke in front of them. “Here they come,” he said sharply. “Now, Lees, get to it. Stand by, you bombers. Range three hundred the rest o’ you, an’ fire steady. Pick your marks. We got no rounds to waste. Now, then——”The rifles began to bang steadily, then at a rapidly increasing rate as the fire failed to stop the advance, and more dim figures after figures came looming up hazily and emerging from the smoke. The machine-gunner held his fire until he could bring his sights on alittle group, fired in short bursts with a side-ways twitch that sprayed the bullets out fan-wise as they went. The rifle-fire out to right and left of them, and almost behind them, swelled to a long, rolling beat with the tattoo of machine-guns rapping through it in gusts, the explosions of grenades rising and falling in erratic bursts.Farther back, the guns were hard at it again, and the shells were screaming and rushing overhead in a ceaseless torrent, the shrapnel to blink a star of flame from the heart of a smoke-cloud springing out in mid-air, the high explosive crashing down in ponderous bellowings, up-flung vivid splashes of fire and spouting torrents of smoke, flying mud and earth clods. There were German shells, too, shrieking over, and adding their share to the indescribable uproar, crashing down along the line, and spraying out in circles of fragments, the smaller bits whistling and whizzing viciously, the larger hurtling and humming like monster bees.“Them shells of ours is comm’ down a sight too close to us, Sergeant,” yelled theCorporal, glancing up as a shrapnel shell cracked sharply almost overhead and sprayed its bullets, scattering and splashing along the wet ground out in front of them.“All right—it’s shrap,” the Sergeant yelled back. “Bullets is pitchin’ well forrad.”The Corporal swore and ducked hastily from thewhitt-whittof a couple of bullets past their ears. “Them was from behind us,” he shouted. “We’re too blazin’ far out in front o’ the line here. Wot’s the good——”“Here,” said the Sergeant to a man who staggered back from the rough parapet, right hand clutched on a blood-streaming left shoulder, “whip a field dressin’ round that, an’ try an’ crawl back to them behind us. Find an officer, if you can, an’ tell him we’re out in front of ’im. An’ tell ’im I’m going to hang on to the position we have here till my blanky teeth pull out.”“Wot’s the good——” began the Corporal again, ceasing fire to look round at the Sergeant.“Never mind the good now,” said the Sergeantshortly, as he recharged his magazine. “You’ll see after—if we live long enough.” He levelled and aimed his rifle. “An’ we won’t do that if you stand there”—(he fired a shot and jerked the breech open)—“jawin’ instead”—(he slammed the breech-bolt home and laid cheek to stock again)—“o’ shootin’”; and he snapped another shot.On their own immediate front the attack slackened, and died away, but along the line a little the Sergeant’s group could see a swarm of men charging in. The Sergeant immediately ordered the machine-gun and every rifle to take the attackers in enfilade. For the next few minutes every man shot as fast as he could load and pull trigger, and the captured machine-gun banged and spat a steady stream of fire. The Sergeant helped until he saw the attack dying out again, its remnants fading into the smoke haze. Then he pulled his book out, and wrote his message: “Am holding crater position with captured machine-gun and eight men of No. 2 Platoon. Good position, allowing enfilade fire on attack, and with command of farther slopes.Urgently require men, ammunition, and bombs, but will hold out to the finish.”He sent the note back by a couple of wounded men, and set his party about strengthening their position as far as possible. In ten minutes another attack commenced, and the men took up their rifles and resumed their steady fire. But this time the field-grey figures pressed in, despite the pouring fire and the pounding shells, and, although they were held and checked and driven to taking cover in shell-holes on the Sergeant’s immediate front, they were within grenade-throwing distance there, and the German “potato-masher” bombs and the British Mills’ began to twirl and curve over to and fro, and burst in shattering detonations. Three more of the Sergeant’s party were wounded inside as many minutes, but every man who could stand on his feet, well or wounded, rose at the Sergeant’s warning yell to meet the rush of about a dozen men who swung aside from a large group that had pressed in past their flank. The rush was met by a few quick shots, but the ammunition for the machine-gun hadrun out, and of bombs even there were only a few left. So, in the main, the rush was met with the bayonet—and killed with it. The Sergeant still held his crater, but now he had only two unwounded men left to help him.The Corporal, nursing a gashed cheek and spitting mouthfuls of blood, shouted at him again, “Y’ ain’t goin’ to try ’ hold on longer, surely. We’ve near shot the last round away.”“I’ll hold it,” said the Sergeant grimly, “if I have to do it myself wi’ my bare fists.”But he cast anxious looks behind, in hope of a sight of reinforcements, and knew that if they did not come before another rush he and his party were done. His tenacity had its due reward. Help did come—men and ammunition and bombs and a couple of machine-guns—and not three minutes before the launching of another attack. An officer was with the party, and took command, but he was killed inside the first minute, and the Sergeant again took hold.Again the attack was made all along the line, and again, under the ferocious fire of thereinforced line, it was beaten back. The line had at the last minute been hinged outward behind the Sergeant, and so joined up with him that it formed a sharpish angle, with the Sergeant’s crater at its point. The enfilade fire of this forward-swung portion and the two machine-guns in the crater did a good deal to help cut down the main attack.When it was well over, and the attack had melted away, the Captain of the Sergeant’s Company pushed up into the crater.“Who’s in charge here?” he asked. “You, Sergeant? Your note came back, and we sent you help; but you were taking a long risk out here. Didn’t you know you had pushed out beyond your proper point? And why didn’t you retire when you found yourself in the air?”The Sergeant turned and pointed out where the thinning smoke gave a view of the wide open flats of the plain beyond the ridge.“I got a look o’ that, sir,” he said, “and I just thought a commanding position like this was worth sticking a lot to hang to.”“Jove! and you were right,” said the Captain,looking gloatingly on the flats, and went on to add other and warmer words of praise.But it was to his corporal, a little later, that the Sergeant really explained his hanging on to the point.“Look at it!” he said enthusiastically; “look at the view you get!”The Corporal viewed dispassionately for a moment the dreary expanse below, the shell-churned morass and mud, wandering rivulets and ditches, shell-wrecked fragments of farms and buildings, the broken, bare-stripped poles of trees.“Bloomin’ great, ain’t it?” he mumbled disgustedly, through his bandaged jaws. “Fair beautiful. Makes you think you’d like to come ’ere after the war an’ build a ’ouse, an’ sit lookin’ out on it always—Idon’tthink.”“Exactly what I said the second I saw it,” said the Sergeant, and chuckled happily. “Only my house’d be a nice little trench an’ a neat little dug-out, an’ be for duration o’ war. Think o’ it, man—just think o’ this winter, with us up here along the ridge, an’Fritz down in his trenches below there, up to the middle in mud. Him cursin’ Creation, and strugglin’ to pump his trenches out; and us sitting nicely up here in the dry, snipin’ down in enfilade along his trench, and pumpin’ the water out of our trenches down on to the flat to drown him out.”The Sergeant chuckled again, slapped his hands together. “I’ve been havin’ that side of it back in the salient there for best part o’ two years, off and on. Fritz has been up top, keepin’ his feet dry and watchin’ us gettin’ shelled an’ shot up an’ minnie-werfered to glory—squattin’ up here, smokin’ his pipe an’ takin’ a pot-shot at us, and watchin’ us through his field-glasses, just as he felt like. And now it’s our turn. Don’t let me hear anybody talk about drivin’ the Hun back for miles from here. I don’t want him to go back; I want him to sit down there the whole darn winter, freezin’ an’ drownin’ to death ten times a day. Fritz isn’t go in’ to like that—not any. I am, an’ that’s why I hung like grim death to this look-out point. This is where we come in; this isourturn!”

OUR TURN

No. II platoon had had a bad mauling in their advance, and when they reached their “final objective line” there were left out of the ninety-odd men who had started, one sergeant, one corporal, and fourteen men. But, with the rest of the line, they at once set to work to consolidate, to dig in, to fill the sandbags each man carried, and to line the lip of a shell crater with them. Every man there knew that a counter-attack on their position was practically a certainty. They had not a great many bombs or very much ammunition left; they had been struggling through a wilderness of sticky mud and shell-churned mire all day, moving for all the world like flies across a half-dry fly-paper; they had been without food since dawn, when they had consumed the bully and biscuit of their iron “ration”; they were plastered with a casingof chilly mud from head to foot; they were wet to the skin; brain, body, and bone weary.

But they went about the task of consolidating with the greatest vigour they could bring their tired muscles to yield. They worried not at all about the shortage of bombs and ammunition, or lack of food, because they were all by now veterans of the new “planned” warfare, knew that every detail of re-supplying them with all they required had been fully and carefully arranged, that these things were probably even now on the way to them, that reinforcements and working parties would be pushed up to the new line as soon as it was established. So the Sergeant was quite willing to leave all that to work out in its proper sequence, knew that his simple job was to hold the ground they had taken, and, therefore, bent all his mind to that work.

But it suddenly appeared that the ground was not as completely taken as he had supposed. A machine-gun close at hand began to bang out a string of running reports; a stream of bullets hissed and whipped andsmacked the ground about him and his party. A spasmodic crackle of rifle-fire started again farther along the line at the same time. The Sergeant paid no heed to that. He and his men had flung down into cover, and dropped spades and trenching tools and sandbags, and whipped up their rifles to return the fire, at the first sound of the machine-gun.

The Sergeant peered over the edge of the hole he was in, locating a bobbing head or two and the spurting flashes of the gun, and ducked down again. “They’re in a shell-hole not more’n twenty, thirty yards away,” he said rapidly. “Looks like only a handful. We’ll rush ’em out. Here——” and he went on into quick detailed orders for the rushing. Three minutes later he and his men swarmed out of their shelter and went forward at a scrambling run, the bombers flinging a shower of grenades ahead of them, the bayonet men floundering over the rough ground with weapons at the ready, the Sergeant well in the lead.

Their sudden and purposeful rush must have upset the group of Germans, because themachine-gun fire for a moment became erratic, the muzzle jerked this way and that, the bullets whistled wide, and during that same vital moment no bombs were thrown by the Germans; and when at last they did begin to come spinning out, most of them went too far, and the runners were well over them before they had time to explode. In another moment the Sergeant leaped down fairly on top of the machine-gun, his bayonet thrusting through the gunner as he jumped. He shot a second and bayoneted a third, had his shoulder-strap blown away by a rifle at no more than muzzle distance, his sleeve and his haversack ripped open by a bayonet thrust.

Then his men swarmed down into the wide crater, and in two minutes the fight was over. There were another few seconds of rapid fire at two or three of the Germans who had jumped out and run for their lives, and that finished the immediate performance. The Sergeant looked round, climbed from the hole, and made a hasty examination of the ground about them.

“’Tisn’t as good a crater as we left,” hesaid, “an’ it’s ’way out front o’ the line the others is digging, so we’d best get back. Get a hold o’ that machine-gun an’ all the spare ammunition you can lay hands on. We might find it come in useful. Good job we had the way a Fritz gun works shown us once. Come on.”

The men hastily collected all the ammunition they could find and were moving back, when one of them, standing on the edge of the hole, remarked: “We got the top o’ the ridge all right this time. Look at the open flat down there.”

The Sergeant turned and looked, and an exclamation broke from him at sight of the view over the ground beyond the ridge. Up to now that ground had been hidden by a haze of smoke from the bursting shells where our barrage was pounding steadily down. But for a minute the smoke had lifted or blown aside, and the Sergeant found himself looking down the long slope of a valley with gently swelling sides, looking right down on to the plain below the ridge. He scanned the lie of the ground rapidly, and in an instant hadmade up his mind. “Hold on there,” he ordered abruptly; “we’ll dig in here instead. Sling that machine-gun back in here and point her out that way. You, Lees, get ’er into action, and rip out a few rounds just to see you got the hang o’ it. Heave those dead Boches out; an’, Corporal, you nip back with half a dozen men and fetch along the tools and sandbags we left there. Slippy now.”

The Corporal picked his half-dozen men and vanished, and the Sergeant whipped out a message-book and began to scribble a note. Before he had finished the rifle-fire began to rattle down along the line again, and he thrust the book in his pocket, picked up his rifle, and peered out over the edge of the hole. “There they go, Lees,” he said suddenly. “Way along there on the left front. Pump it into ’em. Don’t waste rounds, though; we may need ’em for our own front in a minute. Come on, Corporal, get down in here. Looks like the start o’ a counter-attack, though I don’t see any of the blighters on our own front. Here, you two, spade out a cut into the next shell-hole there, so’s to link ’em up.Steady that gun, Lees; don’t waste ’em. Get on to your sandbag-fillin’, the others, an’ make a bit o’ a parapet this side.”

“We’re a long ways out in front of the rest o’ the line, ain’t we?” said the Corporal.

“Yes, I know,” said the Sergeant. “I want to send a message back presently. This is the spot to hold, an’ don’t you forget it. Just look down—hullo, here’s our barrage droppin’ again. Well, it blots out the view, but it’ll be blottin’ out any Germs that try to push us; so hit ’er up, the Gunners. But——” He broke off suddenly, and stared out into the writhing haze of smoke in front of them. “Here they come,” he said sharply. “Now, Lees, get to it. Stand by, you bombers. Range three hundred the rest o’ you, an’ fire steady. Pick your marks. We got no rounds to waste. Now, then——”

The rifles began to bang steadily, then at a rapidly increasing rate as the fire failed to stop the advance, and more dim figures after figures came looming up hazily and emerging from the smoke. The machine-gunner held his fire until he could bring his sights on alittle group, fired in short bursts with a side-ways twitch that sprayed the bullets out fan-wise as they went. The rifle-fire out to right and left of them, and almost behind them, swelled to a long, rolling beat with the tattoo of machine-guns rapping through it in gusts, the explosions of grenades rising and falling in erratic bursts.

Farther back, the guns were hard at it again, and the shells were screaming and rushing overhead in a ceaseless torrent, the shrapnel to blink a star of flame from the heart of a smoke-cloud springing out in mid-air, the high explosive crashing down in ponderous bellowings, up-flung vivid splashes of fire and spouting torrents of smoke, flying mud and earth clods. There were German shells, too, shrieking over, and adding their share to the indescribable uproar, crashing down along the line, and spraying out in circles of fragments, the smaller bits whistling and whizzing viciously, the larger hurtling and humming like monster bees.

“Them shells of ours is comm’ down a sight too close to us, Sergeant,” yelled theCorporal, glancing up as a shrapnel shell cracked sharply almost overhead and sprayed its bullets, scattering and splashing along the wet ground out in front of them.

“All right—it’s shrap,” the Sergeant yelled back. “Bullets is pitchin’ well forrad.”

The Corporal swore and ducked hastily from thewhitt-whittof a couple of bullets past their ears. “Them was from behind us,” he shouted. “We’re too blazin’ far out in front o’ the line here. Wot’s the good——”

“Here,” said the Sergeant to a man who staggered back from the rough parapet, right hand clutched on a blood-streaming left shoulder, “whip a field dressin’ round that, an’ try an’ crawl back to them behind us. Find an officer, if you can, an’ tell him we’re out in front of ’im. An’ tell ’im I’m going to hang on to the position we have here till my blanky teeth pull out.”

“Wot’s the good——” began the Corporal again, ceasing fire to look round at the Sergeant.

“Never mind the good now,” said the Sergeantshortly, as he recharged his magazine. “You’ll see after—if we live long enough.” He levelled and aimed his rifle. “An’ we won’t do that if you stand there”—(he fired a shot and jerked the breech open)—“jawin’ instead”—(he slammed the breech-bolt home and laid cheek to stock again)—“o’ shootin’”; and he snapped another shot.

On their own immediate front the attack slackened, and died away, but along the line a little the Sergeant’s group could see a swarm of men charging in. The Sergeant immediately ordered the machine-gun and every rifle to take the attackers in enfilade. For the next few minutes every man shot as fast as he could load and pull trigger, and the captured machine-gun banged and spat a steady stream of fire. The Sergeant helped until he saw the attack dying out again, its remnants fading into the smoke haze. Then he pulled his book out, and wrote his message: “Am holding crater position with captured machine-gun and eight men of No. 2 Platoon. Good position, allowing enfilade fire on attack, and with command of farther slopes.Urgently require men, ammunition, and bombs, but will hold out to the finish.”

He sent the note back by a couple of wounded men, and set his party about strengthening their position as far as possible. In ten minutes another attack commenced, and the men took up their rifles and resumed their steady fire. But this time the field-grey figures pressed in, despite the pouring fire and the pounding shells, and, although they were held and checked and driven to taking cover in shell-holes on the Sergeant’s immediate front, they were within grenade-throwing distance there, and the German “potato-masher” bombs and the British Mills’ began to twirl and curve over to and fro, and burst in shattering detonations. Three more of the Sergeant’s party were wounded inside as many minutes, but every man who could stand on his feet, well or wounded, rose at the Sergeant’s warning yell to meet the rush of about a dozen men who swung aside from a large group that had pressed in past their flank. The rush was met by a few quick shots, but the ammunition for the machine-gun hadrun out, and of bombs even there were only a few left. So, in the main, the rush was met with the bayonet—and killed with it. The Sergeant still held his crater, but now he had only two unwounded men left to help him.

The Corporal, nursing a gashed cheek and spitting mouthfuls of blood, shouted at him again, “Y’ ain’t goin’ to try ’ hold on longer, surely. We’ve near shot the last round away.”

“I’ll hold it,” said the Sergeant grimly, “if I have to do it myself wi’ my bare fists.”

But he cast anxious looks behind, in hope of a sight of reinforcements, and knew that if they did not come before another rush he and his party were done. His tenacity had its due reward. Help did come—men and ammunition and bombs and a couple of machine-guns—and not three minutes before the launching of another attack. An officer was with the party, and took command, but he was killed inside the first minute, and the Sergeant again took hold.

Again the attack was made all along the line, and again, under the ferocious fire of thereinforced line, it was beaten back. The line had at the last minute been hinged outward behind the Sergeant, and so joined up with him that it formed a sharpish angle, with the Sergeant’s crater at its point. The enfilade fire of this forward-swung portion and the two machine-guns in the crater did a good deal to help cut down the main attack.

When it was well over, and the attack had melted away, the Captain of the Sergeant’s Company pushed up into the crater.

“Who’s in charge here?” he asked. “You, Sergeant? Your note came back, and we sent you help; but you were taking a long risk out here. Didn’t you know you had pushed out beyond your proper point? And why didn’t you retire when you found yourself in the air?”

The Sergeant turned and pointed out where the thinning smoke gave a view of the wide open flats of the plain beyond the ridge.

“I got a look o’ that, sir,” he said, “and I just thought a commanding position like this was worth sticking a lot to hang to.”

“Jove! and you were right,” said the Captain,looking gloatingly on the flats, and went on to add other and warmer words of praise.

But it was to his corporal, a little later, that the Sergeant really explained his hanging on to the point.

“Look at it!” he said enthusiastically; “look at the view you get!”

The Corporal viewed dispassionately for a moment the dreary expanse below, the shell-churned morass and mud, wandering rivulets and ditches, shell-wrecked fragments of farms and buildings, the broken, bare-stripped poles of trees.

“Bloomin’ great, ain’t it?” he mumbled disgustedly, through his bandaged jaws. “Fair beautiful. Makes you think you’d like to come ’ere after the war an’ build a ’ouse, an’ sit lookin’ out on it always—Idon’tthink.”

“Exactly what I said the second I saw it,” said the Sergeant, and chuckled happily. “Only my house’d be a nice little trench an’ a neat little dug-out, an’ be for duration o’ war. Think o’ it, man—just think o’ this winter, with us up here along the ridge, an’Fritz down in his trenches below there, up to the middle in mud. Him cursin’ Creation, and strugglin’ to pump his trenches out; and us sitting nicely up here in the dry, snipin’ down in enfilade along his trench, and pumpin’ the water out of our trenches down on to the flat to drown him out.”

The Sergeant chuckled again, slapped his hands together. “I’ve been havin’ that side of it back in the salient there for best part o’ two years, off and on. Fritz has been up top, keepin’ his feet dry and watchin’ us gettin’ shelled an’ shot up an’ minnie-werfered to glory—squattin’ up here, smokin’ his pipe an’ takin’ a pot-shot at us, and watchin’ us through his field-glasses, just as he felt like. And now it’s our turn. Don’t let me hear anybody talk about drivin’ the Hun back for miles from here. I don’t want him to go back; I want him to sit down there the whole darn winter, freezin’ an’ drownin’ to death ten times a day. Fritz isn’t go in’ to like that—not any. I am, an’ that’s why I hung like grim death to this look-out point. This is where we come in; this isourturn!”

XVIACCORDING TO PLAN“Ratty” Traversdropped his load with a grunt of satisfaction, squatted down on the ground, and tilting his shrapnel helmet back, mopped a streaming brow. As the line in which he had moved dropped to cover, another line rose out of the ground ahead of them and commenced to push forward. Some distance beyond, a wave of kilted Highlanders pressed on at a steady walk up to within about fifty paces of the string of flickering, jumping white patches that marked the edge of the “artillery barrage.”Ratty Travers and the others of the machine-gun company being in support had a good view of the lines attacking ahead of them.“Them Jocks is goin’ along nicely,” said the man who had dropped beside Ratty. Ratty grunted scornfully. “Beautiful,” hesaid. “An’ we’re doin’ wonderful well ourselves. I never remember gettin’ over the No Man’s Land so easy, or seein’ a trench took so quick an’ simple in my life as this one we’re in; or seein’ a’tillery barrage move so nice an’ even and steady to time.”“You’ve seed a lot, Ratty,” said his companion. “But you ain’t seed everything.”“That’s true,” said Ratty. “I’ve never seen a lot o’ grown men playin’ let’s-pretend like a lot of school kids. Just look at that fool wi’ the big drum, Johnny.”Johnny looked and had to laugh. The man with the big drum was lugging it off at the double away from the kilted line, and strung out to either side of him there raced a scattered line of men armed with sticks and biscuit-tins and empty cans. Ratty and his companions were clothed in full fighting kit and equipment, and bore boxes of very real ammunition. In the “trenches” ahead of them, or moving over the open, were other men similarly equipped; rolling back to them came a clash and clatter, a dull prolongedboom-boom-boom. In every detail, so far asthe men were concerned, an attack was in full swing; but there was no yell and crash of falling shells, no piping whistle and sharp crack of bullets, no deafening, shaking thunder of artillery (except that steadyboom-boom), no shell-scorched strip of battered ground. The warm sun shone on trim green fields, on long twisting lines of flags and tapes strung on sticks, on ranks of perspiring men in khaki with rifles and bombs and machine-guns and ammunition and stretchers and all the other accoutrements of battle. There were no signs of death or wounds, none of the horror of war, because this was merely a “practice attack,” a full-dress rehearsal of the real thing, full ten miles behind the front. The trenches were marked out by flags and tapes, the artillery barrage was a line of men hammering biscuit-tins and a big drum, and waving fluttering white flags. The kilts came to a halt fifty paces short of them, and a moment later, the “barrage” sprinted off ahead one or two score yards, halted, and fell to banging and battering tins and drum and waving flags, while the kilts solemnly movedon after them, to halt again at their measured distance until the next “lift” of the “barrage.” It looked sheer child’s play, a silly elaborate game; and yet there was no sign of laughter or play about the men taking part in it—except on the part of Ratty Travers. Ratty was openly scornful. “Ready there,” said a sergeant rising and pocketing the notebook he had been studying. “We’ve only five minutes in this trench. And remember you move half-right when you leave here, an’ the next line o’ flags is the sunk road wi’ six machine-gun emplacements along the edge.”Ratty chuckled sardonically. “I ’ope that in the real thing them machine-guns won’t ‘ave nothing to say to us movin’ half-right across their front,” he said.“They’ve been strafed out wi’ the guns,” said Johnny simply, “an’ the Jocks ’as mopped up any that’s left. We was told that yesterday.”“I dare say,” retorted Ratty. “An’ I hopes the Huns ’ave been careful instructed in the same. It ’ud be a pity if they went an’ did anything to spoil all the plans. But theywouldn’t do that. Oh, no, of course not—Idon’tthink!”He had a good deal more to say in the same strain—with especially biting criticism on the “artillery barrage” and the red-faced big drummer who played lead in it—during the rest of the practice and at the end of it when they lay in their “final objective” and rested, smoking and cooling off with the top buttons of tunics undone, while the officers gathered round the C.O. and listened to criticism and made notes in their books.“I’ll admit,” he said, “they might plan out the trenches here the same as the ones we’re to attack from. It’s this rot o’ layin’ out the Fritz trenches gets me. An’ this attack—it’s about as like a real attack as my gasper’s like a machine-gun. Huh! Wi’ one bloke clockin’ you on a stop-watch, an’ another countin’ the paces between the trenches—Boche trenches a mile behind their front line, mind you—an’ another whackin’ a big drum like a kid in a nursery. An’ all this ‘Go steady here, this is a sharp rise,’ or ’hurry this bit, ’cos most likely it’ll be open to enfiladin’ machine-gunfire,’ or ‘this here’s the sunk road wi’ six machine-gun emplacements.’ Huh! Plunky rot I calls it.”The others heard him in silence or with mild chaffing replies. Ratty was new to this planned-attack game, of course, but since he had been out and taken his whack of the early days, had been wounded, and home, and only lately had come out again, he was entitled to a certain amount of excusing.Johnny summed it up for them. “We’ve moved a bit since the Noove Chapelle days, you know,” he said. “You didn’t have no little lot like this then, did you?” jerking his head at the bristling line of their machine-guns. “An’ you didn’t have creepin’ barrages, an’ more shells than you could fire, eh? Used to lose seventy an’ eighty per cent. o’ the battalion’s strength goin’ over the bags them days, didn’t you? Well, we’ve changed that a bit, thank Gawd. You’ll see the differ presently.”Later on Ratty had to admit a considerable “differ” and a great improvement on old ways. He and his company moved up towardsthe front leisurely and certainly, without haste and without confusion, having the orders detailed overnight for the next day’s march, finding meals cooked and served regularly, travelling by roads obviously known and “detailed” for them, coming at night to camp or billet places left vacant for them immediately before, finding everything planned and prepared, foreseen and provided for. But, although he admitted all this, he stuck to his belief that beyond the front line this carefully-planned moving must cease abruptly. “It’ll be the same plunky old scramble an’ scrap, I’ll bet,” he said. “We’ll see then if all the Fritz trenches is just where we’ve fixed ’em, an’ if we runs to a regular time-table and follows the laid-down route an’ first-turn-to-the-right-an’-mind-the-step-performance we’ve been practisin’.”But it was as they approached the fighting zone, and finally when they found themselves installed in a support trench on the morning of the Push that Ratty came to understand the full difference between old battles and this new style. For days on end he heardsuch gun-fire as he had never dreamed of, heard it continue without ceasing or slackening day and night. By day he saw the distant German ground veiled in a drifting fog-bank of smoke, saw it by night starred with winking and spurting gusts of flame from our high-explosives. He walked or lay on a ground that quivered and trembled under the unceasing shock of our guns’ discharges, covered his eyes at night to shut out the flashing lights that pulsed and throbbed constantly across the sky. On the last march that had brought them into the trenches they had passed through guns and guns and yet again guns, first the huge monsters lurking hidden well back and only a little in advance of the great piles of shells and long roofed sidings crammed with more shells, then farther on past other monsters only less in comparison with those they had seen before, on again past whole batteries of 60-pounders and “six-inch” tucked away in corners of woods or amongst broken houses, and finally up through the field guns packed close in every corner that would more or less hide a battery,or brazenly lined up in the open. They tramped down the long street of a ruined village—a street that was no more than a cleared strip of cobblestones bordered down its length on both sides by the piled or scattered heaps of rubble and brick that had once been rows of houses—with a mad chorus of guns roaring and cracking and banging in numberless scores about them, passed over the open behind the trenches to find more guns ranged battery after battery, and all with sheeting walls of flame jumping and flashing along their fronts. They found and settled into their trench with this unbroken roar of fire bellowing in their ears, a roar so loud and long that it seemed impossible to increase it. When their watches told them it was an hour to the moment they had been warned was the “zero hour,” the fixed moment of the attack, the sound of the gun-fire swelled suddenly and rose to a pitch of fury that eclipsed all that had gone before. The men crouched in their trench listening in awed silence, and as the zero hour approached Ratty clambered and stood where he couldlook over the edge towards the German lines. A sergeant shouted at him angrily to get down, and hadn’t he heard the order to keep under cover? Ratty dropped back beside the others. “Lumme,” he said disgustedly, “I dunno wot this bloomin’ war’s comin’ to. Orders, orders, orders! You mustn’t get plunky well killed nowadays, unless you ’as orders to.”“There they go,” said Johnny suddenly, and all strained their ears for the sound of rattling rifle-fire that came faintly through the roll of the guns. “An’ here they come,” said Ratty quickly, and all crouched low and listened to the rising roar of a heavy shell approaching, the heavycr-r-rumpof its fall. A message passed along, “Ready there. Move in five minutes.” And at five minutes to the tick, they rose and began to pass along the trench.“Know where we are, Ratty?” asked Johnny. Ratty looked about him. “How should I know?” he shouted back, “I was never ’ere before.”“You oughter,” returned Johnny. “Thisis the line we started from back in practice attack—the one that was taped out along by the stream.”“I’m a fat lot better for knowin’ it too,” said Ratty sarcastically, and trudged on. They passed slowly forward and along branching trenches until they came at last to the front line, from which, after a short rest, they climbed and hoisted their machine-guns out into the open. From here for the first time they could see something of the battleground; but could see nothing of the battle except a drifting haze of smoke, and, just disappearing into it, a shadowy line of figures. The thunder of the guns continued, and out in front they could hear now the crackle of rifle fire, the sharp detonations of grenades. There were far fewer shells falling about the old “neutral ground” than Ratty had expected, and even comparatively few bullets piping over and past them. They reached the tumbled wreckage of shell-holes and splintered planks that marked what had been the front German line, clambered through this, and pushed on stumbling andclimbing in and out the shell-holes that riddled the ground. “Where’s the Buffs that’s supposed to be in front o’ us,” shouted Ratty, and ducked hastily into a deep shell-hole at the warning screech of an approaching shell. It crashed down somewhere near and a shower of dirt and earth rained down on him. He climbed out. “Should be ahead about a——here’s some o’ them now wi’ prisoners,” said Johnny. They had a hurried glimpse of a huddled group of men in grey with their hands well up over their heads, running, stumbling, half falling and recovering, but always keeping their hands hoisted well up. There may have been a full thirty of them, and they were being shepherded back by no more than three or four men with bayonets gleaming on their rifles. They disappeared into the haze, and the machine-gunners dropped down into a shallow twisting depression and pressed on along it. “This is the communication trench that used to be taped out along the edge o’ that cornfield in practice attack,” said Johnny, when they halted a moment. “Trench?” saidRatty, glancing along it, “Strewth!” The trench was gone, was no more than a wide shallow depression, a tumbled gutter a foot or two below the level of the ground; and even the gutter in places was lost in a patch of broken earth-heaps and craters. It was best traced by the dead that lay in it, by the litter of steel helmets, rifles, bombs, gas-masks, bayonets, water-bottles, arms and equipment of every kind strewed along it.By now Ratty had lost all sense of direction or location, but Johnny at his elbow was always able to keep him informed. Ratty at first refused to accept his statements, but was convinced against all argument, and it was always clear from the direct and unhesitating fashion in which they were led that those in command knew where they were and where to go. “We should pass three trees along this trench somewhere soon,” Johnny would say, and presently, sure enough, they came to one stump six foot high and two splintered butts just showing above the earth. They reached a wide depression, and Johnny pointed and shouted, “The sunk road,” and looking round,pointed again to some whitish-grey masses broken, overturned, almost buried in the tumbled earth, the remains of concrete machine-gun emplacements which Ratty remembered had been marked somewhere back there on the practice ground by six marked boards. “Six,” shouted Johnny, and grinned triumphantly at the doubter.The last of Ratty’s doubts as to the correctness of battle plans, even of the German lines, vanished when they came to a bare stretch of ground which Johnny reminded him was where they had been warned they would most likely come under enfilading machine-gun fire. They halted on the edge of this patch to get their wind, and watched some stretcher-bearers struggling to cross and a party of men digging furiously to make a line of linked-up shell-holes, while the ground about them jumped and splashed under the hailing of bullets.“Enfiladin’ fire,” said Ratty. “Should think it was too. Why the ’ell don’t they silence the guns doin’ it?”“Supposed to be in a clump o’ wood overthere,” said Johnny. “And it ain’t due to be took for an hour yet.”The word passed along, and they rose and began to cross the open ground amongst the raining bullets. “There’s our objective,” shouted Johnny as they ran. “That rise—come into action there.” Ratty stared aghast at the rise, and at the spouting columns of smoke and dirt that leaped from it under a steady fall of heavy shells. “That,” he screeched back, “Gorstrewth. Good-bye us then.” But he ran on as well as he could under the weight of the gun on his shoulder. They were both well out to the left of their advancing line and Ratty was instinctively flinching from the direct route into those gusts of flame and smoke. “Keep up,” yelled Johnny. “Remember the trench. You’ll miss the end of it.” Ratty recalled vaguely the line of flags and tape that had wriggled over the practice ground to the last position where they had halted each day and brought their guns into mimic action. He knew he would have slanted to the right to hit the trench end there, so here he alsoslanted right and presently stumbled thankfully into the broken trench, and pushed along it up the rise. At the top he found himself looking over a gentle slope, the foot of which was veiled in an eddying mist of smoke. A heavy shell burst with a terrifying crash and sent him reeling from the shock. He sat down with a bump, shaken and for the moment dazed, but came to himself with Johnny’s voice bawling in his ear, “Come on, man, come on. Hurt? Quick then—yer gun.” He staggered up and towards an officer whom he could see waving frantically at him and opening and shutting his mouth in shouts that were lost in the uproar. He thrust forward and into a shell-hole beside Johnny and the rest of the gun detachment. His sergeant jumped down beside them shouting and pointing out into the smoke wreaths. “See the wood ... six hundred ... lay on the ground-line—they’re counter-attack——” He stopped abruptly and fell sliding in a tumbled heap down the crater side on top of the gun. The officer ran back mouthing unheard angry shouts at them again. Ratty was gettingangry himself. How could a man get into action with a fellow falling all over his gun like that? They dragged the sergeant’s twitching body clear and Ratty felt a pang of regret for his anger. He’d been a good chap, the sergeant.... But anger swallowed him again as he dragged his gun clear. It was drenched with blood. “Nice bizness,” he said savagely, “if my breech action’s clogged up.” A loaded belt slipped into place and he brought the gun into action with a savage jerk on the loading lever, looked over his sights, and layed them on the edge of the wood he could just dimly see through the smoke. He could see nothing to fire at—cursed smoke was so thick—but the others were firing hard—must be something there. He pressed his thumbs on the lever and his gun began to spurt a stream of fire and lead, the belt racing and clicking through, the breech clacking smoothly, the handles jarring sharply in his fingers.The hillock was still under heavy shell-fire. They had been warned in practice attack that there would probably be shell-fire, and hereit was, shrieking, crashing, tearing the wrecked ground to fresh shapes of wreckage, spouting in fountains of black smoke and earth, whistling and hurtling in jagged fragments, hitting solidly and bursting in whirlwinds of flame and smoke. Ratty had no time to think of the shells. He strained his eyes over the sights on the foot of the dimly seen trees, held his gun steady and spitting its jets of flame and lead, until word came to him, somehow or from somewhere to cease firing. The attack had been wiped out, he heard said. He straightened his bent shoulders and discovered with immense surprise that one shoulder hurt, that his jacket was soaked with blood.“Nothing more than a good Blighty one,” said the bearer who tied him up. “Keep you home two-three months mebbe.”“Good enough,” said Ratty. “I’ll be back in time to see the finish,” and lit a cigarette contentedly.Back in the Aid Post later he heard from one of the Jocks who had been down there in the smoke somewhere between the machine-gunsand the wood, that the front line was already well consolidated. He heard too that the German counter-attack had been cut to pieces, and that the open ground before our new line front was piled with their dead. “You fellies was just late enough wi’ your machine-guns,” said the Highlander. “In anither three-fower meenits they’d a been right on top o’ us.”“Late be blowed,” said Ratty. “We was on the right spot exackly at the programme time o’ the plan. We’d rehearsed the dash thing an’ clocked it too often for me not to be sure o’ that. We was there just when we was meant to be, an’ that was just when they knew we’d be wanted. Whole plunky attack went like clockwork, far’s our bit o’ the plans went.”But it was two days later and snug in bed in a London hospital, when he had read the dispatches describing the battle, that he had his last word on “planned attacks.”“Lumme,” he said to the next bed, “I likes this dispatch of ole ’Indenburg’s. Good mile an’ a half we pushed ’em back, an’ held allthe ground, an’ took 6,000 prisoners; an’, says ’Indenburg, ‘the British attack was completely repulsed ... only a few crater positions were abandoned by us according to plan.’”He dropped the paper and grinned. “Accordin’ to plan,” he said. “That’s true enough. But ’e forgot to say it was the same as it always is—accordin’ to the plan that was made by ‘Aig an’ us.”

ACCORDING TO PLAN

“Ratty” Traversdropped his load with a grunt of satisfaction, squatted down on the ground, and tilting his shrapnel helmet back, mopped a streaming brow. As the line in which he had moved dropped to cover, another line rose out of the ground ahead of them and commenced to push forward. Some distance beyond, a wave of kilted Highlanders pressed on at a steady walk up to within about fifty paces of the string of flickering, jumping white patches that marked the edge of the “artillery barrage.”

Ratty Travers and the others of the machine-gun company being in support had a good view of the lines attacking ahead of them.

“Them Jocks is goin’ along nicely,” said the man who had dropped beside Ratty. Ratty grunted scornfully. “Beautiful,” hesaid. “An’ we’re doin’ wonderful well ourselves. I never remember gettin’ over the No Man’s Land so easy, or seein’ a trench took so quick an’ simple in my life as this one we’re in; or seein’ a’tillery barrage move so nice an’ even and steady to time.”

“You’ve seed a lot, Ratty,” said his companion. “But you ain’t seed everything.”

“That’s true,” said Ratty. “I’ve never seen a lot o’ grown men playin’ let’s-pretend like a lot of school kids. Just look at that fool wi’ the big drum, Johnny.”

Johnny looked and had to laugh. The man with the big drum was lugging it off at the double away from the kilted line, and strung out to either side of him there raced a scattered line of men armed with sticks and biscuit-tins and empty cans. Ratty and his companions were clothed in full fighting kit and equipment, and bore boxes of very real ammunition. In the “trenches” ahead of them, or moving over the open, were other men similarly equipped; rolling back to them came a clash and clatter, a dull prolongedboom-boom-boom. In every detail, so far asthe men were concerned, an attack was in full swing; but there was no yell and crash of falling shells, no piping whistle and sharp crack of bullets, no deafening, shaking thunder of artillery (except that steadyboom-boom), no shell-scorched strip of battered ground. The warm sun shone on trim green fields, on long twisting lines of flags and tapes strung on sticks, on ranks of perspiring men in khaki with rifles and bombs and machine-guns and ammunition and stretchers and all the other accoutrements of battle. There were no signs of death or wounds, none of the horror of war, because this was merely a “practice attack,” a full-dress rehearsal of the real thing, full ten miles behind the front. The trenches were marked out by flags and tapes, the artillery barrage was a line of men hammering biscuit-tins and a big drum, and waving fluttering white flags. The kilts came to a halt fifty paces short of them, and a moment later, the “barrage” sprinted off ahead one or two score yards, halted, and fell to banging and battering tins and drum and waving flags, while the kilts solemnly movedon after them, to halt again at their measured distance until the next “lift” of the “barrage.” It looked sheer child’s play, a silly elaborate game; and yet there was no sign of laughter or play about the men taking part in it—except on the part of Ratty Travers. Ratty was openly scornful. “Ready there,” said a sergeant rising and pocketing the notebook he had been studying. “We’ve only five minutes in this trench. And remember you move half-right when you leave here, an’ the next line o’ flags is the sunk road wi’ six machine-gun emplacements along the edge.”

Ratty chuckled sardonically. “I ’ope that in the real thing them machine-guns won’t ‘ave nothing to say to us movin’ half-right across their front,” he said.

“They’ve been strafed out wi’ the guns,” said Johnny simply, “an’ the Jocks ’as mopped up any that’s left. We was told that yesterday.”

“I dare say,” retorted Ratty. “An’ I hopes the Huns ’ave been careful instructed in the same. It ’ud be a pity if they went an’ did anything to spoil all the plans. But theywouldn’t do that. Oh, no, of course not—Idon’tthink!”

He had a good deal more to say in the same strain—with especially biting criticism on the “artillery barrage” and the red-faced big drummer who played lead in it—during the rest of the practice and at the end of it when they lay in their “final objective” and rested, smoking and cooling off with the top buttons of tunics undone, while the officers gathered round the C.O. and listened to criticism and made notes in their books.

“I’ll admit,” he said, “they might plan out the trenches here the same as the ones we’re to attack from. It’s this rot o’ layin’ out the Fritz trenches gets me. An’ this attack—it’s about as like a real attack as my gasper’s like a machine-gun. Huh! Wi’ one bloke clockin’ you on a stop-watch, an’ another countin’ the paces between the trenches—Boche trenches a mile behind their front line, mind you—an’ another whackin’ a big drum like a kid in a nursery. An’ all this ‘Go steady here, this is a sharp rise,’ or ’hurry this bit, ’cos most likely it’ll be open to enfiladin’ machine-gunfire,’ or ‘this here’s the sunk road wi’ six machine-gun emplacements.’ Huh! Plunky rot I calls it.”

The others heard him in silence or with mild chaffing replies. Ratty was new to this planned-attack game, of course, but since he had been out and taken his whack of the early days, had been wounded, and home, and only lately had come out again, he was entitled to a certain amount of excusing.

Johnny summed it up for them. “We’ve moved a bit since the Noove Chapelle days, you know,” he said. “You didn’t have no little lot like this then, did you?” jerking his head at the bristling line of their machine-guns. “An’ you didn’t have creepin’ barrages, an’ more shells than you could fire, eh? Used to lose seventy an’ eighty per cent. o’ the battalion’s strength goin’ over the bags them days, didn’t you? Well, we’ve changed that a bit, thank Gawd. You’ll see the differ presently.”

Later on Ratty had to admit a considerable “differ” and a great improvement on old ways. He and his company moved up towardsthe front leisurely and certainly, without haste and without confusion, having the orders detailed overnight for the next day’s march, finding meals cooked and served regularly, travelling by roads obviously known and “detailed” for them, coming at night to camp or billet places left vacant for them immediately before, finding everything planned and prepared, foreseen and provided for. But, although he admitted all this, he stuck to his belief that beyond the front line this carefully-planned moving must cease abruptly. “It’ll be the same plunky old scramble an’ scrap, I’ll bet,” he said. “We’ll see then if all the Fritz trenches is just where we’ve fixed ’em, an’ if we runs to a regular time-table and follows the laid-down route an’ first-turn-to-the-right-an’-mind-the-step-performance we’ve been practisin’.”

But it was as they approached the fighting zone, and finally when they found themselves installed in a support trench on the morning of the Push that Ratty came to understand the full difference between old battles and this new style. For days on end he heardsuch gun-fire as he had never dreamed of, heard it continue without ceasing or slackening day and night. By day he saw the distant German ground veiled in a drifting fog-bank of smoke, saw it by night starred with winking and spurting gusts of flame from our high-explosives. He walked or lay on a ground that quivered and trembled under the unceasing shock of our guns’ discharges, covered his eyes at night to shut out the flashing lights that pulsed and throbbed constantly across the sky. On the last march that had brought them into the trenches they had passed through guns and guns and yet again guns, first the huge monsters lurking hidden well back and only a little in advance of the great piles of shells and long roofed sidings crammed with more shells, then farther on past other monsters only less in comparison with those they had seen before, on again past whole batteries of 60-pounders and “six-inch” tucked away in corners of woods or amongst broken houses, and finally up through the field guns packed close in every corner that would more or less hide a battery,or brazenly lined up in the open. They tramped down the long street of a ruined village—a street that was no more than a cleared strip of cobblestones bordered down its length on both sides by the piled or scattered heaps of rubble and brick that had once been rows of houses—with a mad chorus of guns roaring and cracking and banging in numberless scores about them, passed over the open behind the trenches to find more guns ranged battery after battery, and all with sheeting walls of flame jumping and flashing along their fronts. They found and settled into their trench with this unbroken roar of fire bellowing in their ears, a roar so loud and long that it seemed impossible to increase it. When their watches told them it was an hour to the moment they had been warned was the “zero hour,” the fixed moment of the attack, the sound of the gun-fire swelled suddenly and rose to a pitch of fury that eclipsed all that had gone before. The men crouched in their trench listening in awed silence, and as the zero hour approached Ratty clambered and stood where he couldlook over the edge towards the German lines. A sergeant shouted at him angrily to get down, and hadn’t he heard the order to keep under cover? Ratty dropped back beside the others. “Lumme,” he said disgustedly, “I dunno wot this bloomin’ war’s comin’ to. Orders, orders, orders! You mustn’t get plunky well killed nowadays, unless you ’as orders to.”

“There they go,” said Johnny suddenly, and all strained their ears for the sound of rattling rifle-fire that came faintly through the roll of the guns. “An’ here they come,” said Ratty quickly, and all crouched low and listened to the rising roar of a heavy shell approaching, the heavycr-r-rumpof its fall. A message passed along, “Ready there. Move in five minutes.” And at five minutes to the tick, they rose and began to pass along the trench.

“Know where we are, Ratty?” asked Johnny. Ratty looked about him. “How should I know?” he shouted back, “I was never ’ere before.”

“You oughter,” returned Johnny. “Thisis the line we started from back in practice attack—the one that was taped out along by the stream.”

“I’m a fat lot better for knowin’ it too,” said Ratty sarcastically, and trudged on. They passed slowly forward and along branching trenches until they came at last to the front line, from which, after a short rest, they climbed and hoisted their machine-guns out into the open. From here for the first time they could see something of the battleground; but could see nothing of the battle except a drifting haze of smoke, and, just disappearing into it, a shadowy line of figures. The thunder of the guns continued, and out in front they could hear now the crackle of rifle fire, the sharp detonations of grenades. There were far fewer shells falling about the old “neutral ground” than Ratty had expected, and even comparatively few bullets piping over and past them. They reached the tumbled wreckage of shell-holes and splintered planks that marked what had been the front German line, clambered through this, and pushed on stumbling andclimbing in and out the shell-holes that riddled the ground. “Where’s the Buffs that’s supposed to be in front o’ us,” shouted Ratty, and ducked hastily into a deep shell-hole at the warning screech of an approaching shell. It crashed down somewhere near and a shower of dirt and earth rained down on him. He climbed out. “Should be ahead about a——here’s some o’ them now wi’ prisoners,” said Johnny. They had a hurried glimpse of a huddled group of men in grey with their hands well up over their heads, running, stumbling, half falling and recovering, but always keeping their hands hoisted well up. There may have been a full thirty of them, and they were being shepherded back by no more than three or four men with bayonets gleaming on their rifles. They disappeared into the haze, and the machine-gunners dropped down into a shallow twisting depression and pressed on along it. “This is the communication trench that used to be taped out along the edge o’ that cornfield in practice attack,” said Johnny, when they halted a moment. “Trench?” saidRatty, glancing along it, “Strewth!” The trench was gone, was no more than a wide shallow depression, a tumbled gutter a foot or two below the level of the ground; and even the gutter in places was lost in a patch of broken earth-heaps and craters. It was best traced by the dead that lay in it, by the litter of steel helmets, rifles, bombs, gas-masks, bayonets, water-bottles, arms and equipment of every kind strewed along it.

By now Ratty had lost all sense of direction or location, but Johnny at his elbow was always able to keep him informed. Ratty at first refused to accept his statements, but was convinced against all argument, and it was always clear from the direct and unhesitating fashion in which they were led that those in command knew where they were and where to go. “We should pass three trees along this trench somewhere soon,” Johnny would say, and presently, sure enough, they came to one stump six foot high and two splintered butts just showing above the earth. They reached a wide depression, and Johnny pointed and shouted, “The sunk road,” and looking round,pointed again to some whitish-grey masses broken, overturned, almost buried in the tumbled earth, the remains of concrete machine-gun emplacements which Ratty remembered had been marked somewhere back there on the practice ground by six marked boards. “Six,” shouted Johnny, and grinned triumphantly at the doubter.

The last of Ratty’s doubts as to the correctness of battle plans, even of the German lines, vanished when they came to a bare stretch of ground which Johnny reminded him was where they had been warned they would most likely come under enfilading machine-gun fire. They halted on the edge of this patch to get their wind, and watched some stretcher-bearers struggling to cross and a party of men digging furiously to make a line of linked-up shell-holes, while the ground about them jumped and splashed under the hailing of bullets.

“Enfiladin’ fire,” said Ratty. “Should think it was too. Why the ’ell don’t they silence the guns doin’ it?”

“Supposed to be in a clump o’ wood overthere,” said Johnny. “And it ain’t due to be took for an hour yet.”

The word passed along, and they rose and began to cross the open ground amongst the raining bullets. “There’s our objective,” shouted Johnny as they ran. “That rise—come into action there.” Ratty stared aghast at the rise, and at the spouting columns of smoke and dirt that leaped from it under a steady fall of heavy shells. “That,” he screeched back, “Gorstrewth. Good-bye us then.” But he ran on as well as he could under the weight of the gun on his shoulder. They were both well out to the left of their advancing line and Ratty was instinctively flinching from the direct route into those gusts of flame and smoke. “Keep up,” yelled Johnny. “Remember the trench. You’ll miss the end of it.” Ratty recalled vaguely the line of flags and tape that had wriggled over the practice ground to the last position where they had halted each day and brought their guns into mimic action. He knew he would have slanted to the right to hit the trench end there, so here he alsoslanted right and presently stumbled thankfully into the broken trench, and pushed along it up the rise. At the top he found himself looking over a gentle slope, the foot of which was veiled in an eddying mist of smoke. A heavy shell burst with a terrifying crash and sent him reeling from the shock. He sat down with a bump, shaken and for the moment dazed, but came to himself with Johnny’s voice bawling in his ear, “Come on, man, come on. Hurt? Quick then—yer gun.” He staggered up and towards an officer whom he could see waving frantically at him and opening and shutting his mouth in shouts that were lost in the uproar. He thrust forward and into a shell-hole beside Johnny and the rest of the gun detachment. His sergeant jumped down beside them shouting and pointing out into the smoke wreaths. “See the wood ... six hundred ... lay on the ground-line—they’re counter-attack——” He stopped abruptly and fell sliding in a tumbled heap down the crater side on top of the gun. The officer ran back mouthing unheard angry shouts at them again. Ratty was gettingangry himself. How could a man get into action with a fellow falling all over his gun like that? They dragged the sergeant’s twitching body clear and Ratty felt a pang of regret for his anger. He’d been a good chap, the sergeant.... But anger swallowed him again as he dragged his gun clear. It was drenched with blood. “Nice bizness,” he said savagely, “if my breech action’s clogged up.” A loaded belt slipped into place and he brought the gun into action with a savage jerk on the loading lever, looked over his sights, and layed them on the edge of the wood he could just dimly see through the smoke. He could see nothing to fire at—cursed smoke was so thick—but the others were firing hard—must be something there. He pressed his thumbs on the lever and his gun began to spurt a stream of fire and lead, the belt racing and clicking through, the breech clacking smoothly, the handles jarring sharply in his fingers.

The hillock was still under heavy shell-fire. They had been warned in practice attack that there would probably be shell-fire, and hereit was, shrieking, crashing, tearing the wrecked ground to fresh shapes of wreckage, spouting in fountains of black smoke and earth, whistling and hurtling in jagged fragments, hitting solidly and bursting in whirlwinds of flame and smoke. Ratty had no time to think of the shells. He strained his eyes over the sights on the foot of the dimly seen trees, held his gun steady and spitting its jets of flame and lead, until word came to him, somehow or from somewhere to cease firing. The attack had been wiped out, he heard said. He straightened his bent shoulders and discovered with immense surprise that one shoulder hurt, that his jacket was soaked with blood.

“Nothing more than a good Blighty one,” said the bearer who tied him up. “Keep you home two-three months mebbe.”

“Good enough,” said Ratty. “I’ll be back in time to see the finish,” and lit a cigarette contentedly.

Back in the Aid Post later he heard from one of the Jocks who had been down there in the smoke somewhere between the machine-gunsand the wood, that the front line was already well consolidated. He heard too that the German counter-attack had been cut to pieces, and that the open ground before our new line front was piled with their dead. “You fellies was just late enough wi’ your machine-guns,” said the Highlander. “In anither three-fower meenits they’d a been right on top o’ us.”

“Late be blowed,” said Ratty. “We was on the right spot exackly at the programme time o’ the plan. We’d rehearsed the dash thing an’ clocked it too often for me not to be sure o’ that. We was there just when we was meant to be, an’ that was just when they knew we’d be wanted. Whole plunky attack went like clockwork, far’s our bit o’ the plans went.”

But it was two days later and snug in bed in a London hospital, when he had read the dispatches describing the battle, that he had his last word on “planned attacks.”

“Lumme,” he said to the next bed, “I likes this dispatch of ole ’Indenburg’s. Good mile an’ a half we pushed ’em back, an’ held allthe ground, an’ took 6,000 prisoners; an’, says ’Indenburg, ‘the British attack was completely repulsed ... only a few crater positions were abandoned by us according to plan.’”

He dropped the paper and grinned. “Accordin’ to plan,” he said. “That’s true enough. But ’e forgot to say it was the same as it always is—accordin’ to the plan that was made by ‘Aig an’ us.”

XVIIDOWN IN HUNLANDItwas cold—bitterly, bitingly, fiercely cold. It was also at intervals wet, and misty, and snowy, as the ’plane ran by turns through various clouds; but it was the cold that was uppermost in the minds of pilot and observer as they flew through the darkness. They were on a machine of the night-bombing squadron, and the “Night-Fliers” in winter weather take it more or less as part of the night’s work that they are going to be out in cold and otherwise unpleasant weather conditions; but the cold this night was, as the pilot put it in his thoughts, “over the odds.”It was the Night-Fliers’ second trip over Hunland. The first trip had been a short one to a near objective, because at the beginning of the night the weather looked too doubtful to risk a long trip. But before they had come back the weather had cleared, and the SquadronCommander, after full deliberation, had decided to chance the long trip and bomb a certain place which he knew it was urgent should be damaged as much and as soon as possible.All this meant that the Fliers had the shortest possible space of time on the ground between the two trips. Their machines were loaded up with fresh supplies of bombs just as quickly as it could be done, the petrol and oil tanks refilled, expended rounds of ammunition for the machine-guns replaced. Then, one after another, the machines steered out into the darkness across the ’drome ground towards a twinkle of light placed to guide them, wheeled round, gave the engine a preliminary whirl, steadied it down, opened her out again, and one by one at intervals lumbered off at gathering speed, and soared off up into the darkness.The weather held until the objective was reached, although glances astern showed ominous clouds banking up and darkening the sky behind them. The bombs were loosed and seen to strike in leaping gusts of flame on theground below, while searchlights stabbed up into the sky and groped round to find the raiders, and the Hun “Archies” spat sharp tongues of flame up at them. Several times the shells burst near enough to be heard above the roar of the engine; but one after another the Night Fliers “dropped the eggs” and wheeled and drove off for home, the observers leaning over and picking up any visible speck of light or the flickering spurts of a machine-gun’s fire and loosing off quick bursts of fire at these targets. But every pilot knew too well the meaning of those banking clouds to the west, and was in too great haste to get back to spend time hunting targets for their machine-guns; and each opened his engine out and drove hard to reach the safety of our own lines before thick weather could catch and bewilder them.The leaders had escaped fairly lightly—“Atcha” and “Beta” having only a few wides to dodge; but their followers kept catching it hotter and hotter.The “Osca” was the last machine to arrive at the objective and deliver her bombsand swing for home, and because she was the last she came in for the fully awakened defence’s warmest welcome, and wheeled with searchlights hunting for her, with Archie shells coughing round, with machine-guns spitting fire and their bulletszizz-izz-ippingup past her, with “flaming onions” curving up in streaks of angry red fire and falling blazing to earth again. A few of the bullets ripped and rapped viciously through the fabric of her wings, but she suffered no further damage, although the fire was hot enough and close enough to make her pilot and observer breathe sighs of relief as they droned out into the darkness and left all the devilment of fire and lights astern.The word of the Night-Fliers’ raid had evidently gone abroad through the Hun lines however, and as they flew west they could see searchlight after light switching and scything through the dark in search of them. Redmond, or “Reddie,” the pilot, was a good deal more concerned over the darkening sky, and the cold that by now was piercing to his bones, than he was over the searchlights orthe chance of running into further Archie fire. He lifted the “Osca” another 500 feet as he flew, and drove on with his eyes on the compass and on the cloud banks ahead in turn.Flying conditions do not lend themselves to conversation between pilot and observer, but once or twice the two exchanged remarks, very brief and boiled-down remarks, on their position and the chances of reaching the lines before they ran into “the thick.” That a thick was coming was painfully clear to both. The sky by now was completely darkened, and the earth below was totally and utterly lost to sight. The pilot had his compass, and his compass only, left to guide him, and he kept a very close and attentive eye on that and his instrument denoting height. Their bombing objective had been a long way behind the German lines, but Reddie and “Walk” Jones, the observer, were already beginning to congratulate themselves on their nearness to the lines and the probability of escaping the storm, when the storm suddenly whirled down upon them.It came without warning, although warningwould have been of little use, since they could do nothing but continue to push for home. One minute they were flying, in darkness it is true, but still in a clear air; the next they were simply barging blindly through a storm of rain which probably poured straight down to earth, but which to them, flying at some scores of miles per hour, was driving level and with the force of whip cuts full in their faces. Both pilot and observer were blinded. The water cataracting on their goggles cut off all possibility of sight, and Reddie could not even see the compass in front of him or the gleam of light that illuminated it. He held the machine as steady and straight on her course as instinct and a sense of direction would allow him, and after some minutes they passed clear of the rain-storm. Everything was streaming wet—their faces, their goggles, their clothes, and everything they touched in the machine. Reddie mopped the wet off his compass and peered at it a moment, and then with an angry exclamation pushed rudder and joy-stick over and swung round to a direction fairlyopposite to the one they had been travelling. Apparently he had turned completely round in the minutes through the rain—once round at least, and Heaven only knew how many more times.They flew for a few minutes in comparatively clear weather, and then, quite suddenly, they whirled into a thick mist cloud. At first both Reddie and “Walk” thought it was snow, so cold was the touch of the wet on their faces; but even when they found it was no more than a wet mist cloud they were little better off, because again both were completely blinded so far as seeing how or where they were flying went. Reddie developed a sudden fear that he was holding the machine’s nose down, and in a quick revulsion pulled the joy-stick back until he could feel her rear and swoop upwards. He was left with a sense of feeling only to guide him. He could see no faintest feature of the instrument-board in front of him, had to depend entirely on his sense of touch and feel and instinct to know whether the “Osca” was on alevel keel, flying forward, or up or down, or lying right over on either wing tip.The mist cleared, or they flew clear of it, as suddenly as they had entered it, and Reddie found again that he had lost direction, was flying north instead of west. He brought the ’bus round again and let her drop until the altimeter showed a bare two hundred feet above the ground and peered carefully down for any indication of his whereabouts. He could see nothing—blank nothing, below, or above, or around him. He lifted again to the thousand-foot mark and drove on towards the west. He figured that they ought to be coming somewhere near the lines now, but better be safe than sorry, and he’d get well clear of Hunland before he chanced coming down.Then the snow shut down on them. If they had been blinded before, they were doubly blind now. It was not only that the whirling flakes of snow shut out any sight in front of or around them; it drove clinging against their faces, their glasses, their bodies, and froze and was packed hard by the wind of their own speed as they flew. And it was cold,bone- and marrow-piercing cold. Reddie lost all sense of direction again, all sense of whether he was flying forward, or up or down, right side or wrong side up. He even lost any sense of time; and when the scud cleared enough for him to make out the outline of his instruments he could not see the face of his clock, his height or speed recorders, or anything else, until he had scraped the packed snow off them.But this time, according to the compass, he was flying west and in the right direction. So much he just had time to see when they plunged again into another whirling smother of fine snow. They flew through that for minutes which might have been seconds or hours for all the pilot knew. He could see nothing through his clogged goggles, that blurred up faster than he could wipe them clear; he could hear nothing except, dully, the roar of his engine; he could feel nothing except the grip of the joy-stick, numbly, through his thick gloves. He kept the “Osca” flying level by sheer sense of feel, and at times had all he could do to fight back a wave of panic whichrushed on him with a belief that the machine was side-slipping or falling into a spin that would bring him crashing to earth.When the snow cleared again and he was able to see his lighted instruments he made haste to brush them clear of snow and peer anxiously at them. He found he was a good thousand feet up and started at once to lift a bit higher for safety’s sake. By the compass he was still flying homeward, and by the time—the time—he stared hard at his clock ... and found it was stopped. But the petrol in his main tank was almost run out, and according to that he ought to be well over the British lines—if he had kept anything like a straight course. He held a brief and shouted conversation with his observer. “Don’t know where I am. Lost. Think we’re over our lines.”“Shoot a light, eh?” answered the observer, “and try’n’ land. I’m frozen stiff.”They both peered anxiously out round as their Verey light shot out and floated down; but they could see no sign of a flare or an answering light. They fired another signal,and still had no reply; and then, “I’m going down,” yelled the pilot, shutting off his engine and letting the machine glide down in a slow sweeping circle. He could see nothing of the ground when the altimeter showed 500 feet, nor at 300, nor at 200, so opened the throttle and picked up speed again. “Shove her down,” yelled the observer. “More snow coming.”Another Verey light, shot straight down overboard, showed a glimpse of a grass field, and Reddie swung gently round, and slid downward again. At the same time he fired a landing light fixed out under his lower wing-tip in readiness for just such an occasion as this, and by its glowing vivid white light made a fairly good landing on rough grass land. He shut the engine off at once, because he had no idea how near he was to the edge of the field or what obstacles they might bump if they taxied far, and the machine came quickly to rest. The two men sat still for a minute breathing a sigh of thankfulness that they were safe to ground, then turned and looked at each other in the dying lightof the flare. Stiffly they stood up, climbed clumsily out of their places, and down on to the wet ground. Another flurry of snow was falling, but now that they were at rest the snow was floating and drifting gently down instead of beating in their faces with hurricane force as it did when they were flying.Reddie flapped his arms across his chest and stamped his numbed feet. Walk Jones pulled his gloves off and breathed on his stiff fingers. “I’m fair froze,” he mumbled. “Wonder where we are, and how far from the ‘drome?”“Lord knows,” returned Reddie. “I don’t know even where the line is—ahead or astern, right hand or left.”“Snow’s clearing again,” said Jones. “Perhaps we’ll get a bearing then, and I’ll go ’n’ hunt for a camp or a cottage, or anyone that’ll give us a hot drink.”“Wait a bit,” said Reddie. “Stand where you are and let’s give a yell. Some sentry or someone’s bound to hear us. Snow’s stopping all right; but, Great Scott! isn’t it dark.”Presently they lifted their voices and yelled an “Ahoy” together at the pitch of their lungs. There was no answer, and after a pause they yelled again, still without audible result.“Oh, curse!” said Jones, shivering. “I’m not going to hang about here yelping like a lost dog. And we might hunt an hour for a cottage. I’m going to get aboard again and loose off a few rounds from my machine-gun into the ground. That will stir somebody up and bring ’em along.”“There’s the line,” said Reddie suddenly. “Look!” and he pointed to where a faint glow rose and fell, lit and faded, along the horizon. “And the guns,” he added, as they saw a sheet of light jump somewhere in the distance and heard thebumpof the report. Other gun-flashes flickered and beat across the dark sky. “Funny,” said Reddie; “I’d have sworn I turned round as we came down, and I thought the lines were dead the other way.”The observer was fumbling about to get his foot in the step. “I thought they were wayout to the right,” he said. “But I don’t care a curse where they are. I want a camp or a French cottage with coffee on the stove. I’ll see if I can’t shoot somebody awake.”“Try one more shout first,” said Reddie, and they shouted together again.“Got ’im,” said Reddie joyfully, as a faint hail came in response, and Jones took his foot off the step and began to fumble under his coat for a torch. “Here!” yelled Reddie. “This way! Here!”They heard the answering shouts draw nearer, and then, just as Jones found his torch and was pulling it out from under his coat, Reddie clutched at his arm. “What—what was it——” he gasped. “Did you hear what they called?”“No, couldn’t understand,” said Jones in some surprise at the other’s agitation. “They’re French, I suppose; farm people, most like.”“It wasGerman,” said Reddie hurriedly. “There again, hear that?We’ve dropped in Hunland.”“Hu-Hunland!” stammered Jones; thendesperately, “It can’t be. You sure it isn’t French—Flemish, perhaps?”“Flemish—here,” said Reddie, dismissing the idea, as Jones admitted he might well do, so far south in the line. “I know little enough German, but I know French well enough; and that’s not French. We’re done in, Walk.”“Couldn’t we bolt for it,” said Walk, looking hurriedly round. “It’s dark, and we know where the lines are.”“What hope of getting through them?” said Reddie, speaking in quick whispers. “But we’ve got a better way. We’ll make a try. Here, quickly, and quiet as you can—get to the prop and swing it when I’m ready. We’ll chance a dash for it.”Both knew the chances against them, knew that in front of the machine might lie a ditch, a tree, a hedge, a score of things that would trip them as they taxied to get speed to rise; they knew too that the Germans were coming closer every moment, that they might be on them before they could get the engine started, that they would probably start shooting at the first sound of her start. All these thingsand a dozen others raced through their minds in an instant; but neither hesitated, both moved promptly and swiftly. Reddie clambered up and into his seat; Walk Jones jumped to the propeller, and began to wind it backwards to “suck in” the petrol to the cylinders. “When she starts, jump to the wing-tip and try ’n’ swing her round,” called Reddie in quick low tones. “It’ll check her way. Then you must jump for it, and hang on and climb in as we go. Yell when you’re aboard. All ready now.”A shout came out of the darkness—a shout and an obvious question in German. “Contact,” said Walk Jones, and swung the propeller his hardest. He heard the whirr of the starter as Reddie twirled it rapidly. “Off,” called Jones as he saw the engine was not giving sign of life, and “Off” answered Reddie, cutting off the starting current.Another shout came, and with it this time what sounded like an imperative command. Reddie cursed his lack of knowledge of German. He could have held them in play a minute if—— “Contact,” came Walk’s voiceagain. “Contact,” he answered, and whirled the starter madly again. There was still no movement, no spark of life from the engine. Reddie groaned, and Walk Jones, sweating despite the cold over his exertions on the propeller, wound it back again and swung it forward with all his weight. His thick leather coat hampered him. He tore it off and flung it to the ground, and tried again.So they tried and failed, tried and failed, time and again, while all the time the shouts were coming louder and from different points, as if a party had split up and was searching the field. A couple of electric torches threw dancing patches of light on the ground, lifted occasionally and flashed round. One was coming straight towards them, and Reddie with set teeth waited the shout of discovery he knew must come presently, and cursed Walk’s slowness at the “prop.”Again on the word he whirled the starter, and this time “Whur-r-r-rum,” answered the engine, suddenly leaping to life; “Whur-r-r-ROO-OO-OO-OOM-ur-r-r-umph,” as Reddieeased and opened the throttle. He heard a babel of shouts and yells, and saw the light-patches come dancing on the run towards them. A sudden recollection of the only two German words he knew came to him. “Ja wohl,” he yelled at the pitch of his voice, “Ja wohl”; then in lower hurried tones, “Swing her, Walk; quick, swing her,” and opened the engine out again. The running lights stopped for a minute at his yell, and Walk Jones jumped to the wing-tip, shouted “Right!” and hung on while Reddie started to taxi the machine forward. His weight and leverage brought her lumbering round, the roar of engine and propeller rising and sinking as Reddie manipulated the throttle, and Reddie yelling his “Ja wohl,” every time the noise died down.“Get in, Walk; get aboard,” he shouted, when the nose was round and pointing back over the short stretch they had taxied on landing, and which he therefore knew was clear running for at least a start. He heard another order screamed in German, and next instant thebangof a rifle, not more apparentlythan a score of yards away. He kept the machine lumbering forward, restraining himself from opening his engine out, waiting in an agony of apprehension for Walk’s shout. He felt the machine lurch and sway, and the kicking scramble his observer made to board her, heard next instant his yelling “Right-oh!” and opened the throttle full as another couple of rifles bang-banged.The rifles had little terror either for him or the observer, because both knew there were bigger and deadlier risks to run in the next few seconds. There were still desperately long odds against their attempt succeeding. In the routine method of starting a machine, chocks are placed in front of the wheels and the engine is given a short full-power run and a longer easier one to warm the engine and be sure all is well; then the chocks are pulled away and she rolls off, gathering speed as she goes, until she has enough for her pilot to lift her into the air. Here, their engine was stone cold, they knew nothing of what lay in front of them, might crash into something before they left the ground, mightrise, and even then catch some house or tree-top, and travelling at the speed they would by then have attained—well, the Lord help them!Reddie had to chance everything, and yet throw away no shadow of a chance. He opened the throttle wide, felt the machine gather speed, bumping and jolting horribly over the rough field, tried to peer down at the ground to see how fast they moved, could see nothing, utterly black nothing, almost panicked for one heart-stilling instant as he looked ahead again and thought he saw the blacker shadow of something solid in front of him, clenched his teeth and held straight on until he felt by the rush of wind on his face he had way enough, and pulled the joy-stick in to him. With a sigh of relief he felt the jolting change to a smooth swift rush, held his breath, and with a pull on the stick zoomed her up, levelled her out again (should clear anything but a tall tree now), zoomed her up again. He felt a hand thumping on his shoulder, heard Walk’s wild exultant yell—“‘Ra-a-ay!” and, still lifting her steadily,swung his machine’s nose for the jumping lights that marked the trenches.They landed safe on their own ’drome ground half an hour after. The officer whose duty it was for the night to look after the landing-ground and light the flares in answer to the returning pilots’ signals, walked over to them as they came to rest.“Hullo, you two,” he said. “Where th’ blazes you been till this time! We’d just about put you down as missing.”Reddie and Walk had stood up in their cock-pits and, without a spoken word, were solemnly shaking hands.Reddie looked overboard at the officer on the ground. “You may believe it, Johnny, or you may not,” he said, “but we’ve been down into Hunland.”“Down into hell!” said Johnny. “Quit jokin’. What kept you so late?”“You’ve said it, Johnny,” said Reddie soberly. “Down into hell—and out again.”They shook hands again, solemnly.

DOWN IN HUNLAND

Itwas cold—bitterly, bitingly, fiercely cold. It was also at intervals wet, and misty, and snowy, as the ’plane ran by turns through various clouds; but it was the cold that was uppermost in the minds of pilot and observer as they flew through the darkness. They were on a machine of the night-bombing squadron, and the “Night-Fliers” in winter weather take it more or less as part of the night’s work that they are going to be out in cold and otherwise unpleasant weather conditions; but the cold this night was, as the pilot put it in his thoughts, “over the odds.”

It was the Night-Fliers’ second trip over Hunland. The first trip had been a short one to a near objective, because at the beginning of the night the weather looked too doubtful to risk a long trip. But before they had come back the weather had cleared, and the SquadronCommander, after full deliberation, had decided to chance the long trip and bomb a certain place which he knew it was urgent should be damaged as much and as soon as possible.

All this meant that the Fliers had the shortest possible space of time on the ground between the two trips. Their machines were loaded up with fresh supplies of bombs just as quickly as it could be done, the petrol and oil tanks refilled, expended rounds of ammunition for the machine-guns replaced. Then, one after another, the machines steered out into the darkness across the ’drome ground towards a twinkle of light placed to guide them, wheeled round, gave the engine a preliminary whirl, steadied it down, opened her out again, and one by one at intervals lumbered off at gathering speed, and soared off up into the darkness.

The weather held until the objective was reached, although glances astern showed ominous clouds banking up and darkening the sky behind them. The bombs were loosed and seen to strike in leaping gusts of flame on theground below, while searchlights stabbed up into the sky and groped round to find the raiders, and the Hun “Archies” spat sharp tongues of flame up at them. Several times the shells burst near enough to be heard above the roar of the engine; but one after another the Night Fliers “dropped the eggs” and wheeled and drove off for home, the observers leaning over and picking up any visible speck of light or the flickering spurts of a machine-gun’s fire and loosing off quick bursts of fire at these targets. But every pilot knew too well the meaning of those banking clouds to the west, and was in too great haste to get back to spend time hunting targets for their machine-guns; and each opened his engine out and drove hard to reach the safety of our own lines before thick weather could catch and bewilder them.

The leaders had escaped fairly lightly—“Atcha” and “Beta” having only a few wides to dodge; but their followers kept catching it hotter and hotter.

The “Osca” was the last machine to arrive at the objective and deliver her bombsand swing for home, and because she was the last she came in for the fully awakened defence’s warmest welcome, and wheeled with searchlights hunting for her, with Archie shells coughing round, with machine-guns spitting fire and their bulletszizz-izz-ippingup past her, with “flaming onions” curving up in streaks of angry red fire and falling blazing to earth again. A few of the bullets ripped and rapped viciously through the fabric of her wings, but she suffered no further damage, although the fire was hot enough and close enough to make her pilot and observer breathe sighs of relief as they droned out into the darkness and left all the devilment of fire and lights astern.

The word of the Night-Fliers’ raid had evidently gone abroad through the Hun lines however, and as they flew west they could see searchlight after light switching and scything through the dark in search of them. Redmond, or “Reddie,” the pilot, was a good deal more concerned over the darkening sky, and the cold that by now was piercing to his bones, than he was over the searchlights orthe chance of running into further Archie fire. He lifted the “Osca” another 500 feet as he flew, and drove on with his eyes on the compass and on the cloud banks ahead in turn.

Flying conditions do not lend themselves to conversation between pilot and observer, but once or twice the two exchanged remarks, very brief and boiled-down remarks, on their position and the chances of reaching the lines before they ran into “the thick.” That a thick was coming was painfully clear to both. The sky by now was completely darkened, and the earth below was totally and utterly lost to sight. The pilot had his compass, and his compass only, left to guide him, and he kept a very close and attentive eye on that and his instrument denoting height. Their bombing objective had been a long way behind the German lines, but Reddie and “Walk” Jones, the observer, were already beginning to congratulate themselves on their nearness to the lines and the probability of escaping the storm, when the storm suddenly whirled down upon them.

It came without warning, although warningwould have been of little use, since they could do nothing but continue to push for home. One minute they were flying, in darkness it is true, but still in a clear air; the next they were simply barging blindly through a storm of rain which probably poured straight down to earth, but which to them, flying at some scores of miles per hour, was driving level and with the force of whip cuts full in their faces. Both pilot and observer were blinded. The water cataracting on their goggles cut off all possibility of sight, and Reddie could not even see the compass in front of him or the gleam of light that illuminated it. He held the machine as steady and straight on her course as instinct and a sense of direction would allow him, and after some minutes they passed clear of the rain-storm. Everything was streaming wet—their faces, their goggles, their clothes, and everything they touched in the machine. Reddie mopped the wet off his compass and peered at it a moment, and then with an angry exclamation pushed rudder and joy-stick over and swung round to a direction fairlyopposite to the one they had been travelling. Apparently he had turned completely round in the minutes through the rain—once round at least, and Heaven only knew how many more times.

They flew for a few minutes in comparatively clear weather, and then, quite suddenly, they whirled into a thick mist cloud. At first both Reddie and “Walk” thought it was snow, so cold was the touch of the wet on their faces; but even when they found it was no more than a wet mist cloud they were little better off, because again both were completely blinded so far as seeing how or where they were flying went. Reddie developed a sudden fear that he was holding the machine’s nose down, and in a quick revulsion pulled the joy-stick back until he could feel her rear and swoop upwards. He was left with a sense of feeling only to guide him. He could see no faintest feature of the instrument-board in front of him, had to depend entirely on his sense of touch and feel and instinct to know whether the “Osca” was on alevel keel, flying forward, or up or down, or lying right over on either wing tip.

The mist cleared, or they flew clear of it, as suddenly as they had entered it, and Reddie found again that he had lost direction, was flying north instead of west. He brought the ’bus round again and let her drop until the altimeter showed a bare two hundred feet above the ground and peered carefully down for any indication of his whereabouts. He could see nothing—blank nothing, below, or above, or around him. He lifted again to the thousand-foot mark and drove on towards the west. He figured that they ought to be coming somewhere near the lines now, but better be safe than sorry, and he’d get well clear of Hunland before he chanced coming down.

Then the snow shut down on them. If they had been blinded before, they were doubly blind now. It was not only that the whirling flakes of snow shut out any sight in front of or around them; it drove clinging against their faces, their glasses, their bodies, and froze and was packed hard by the wind of their own speed as they flew. And it was cold,bone- and marrow-piercing cold. Reddie lost all sense of direction again, all sense of whether he was flying forward, or up or down, right side or wrong side up. He even lost any sense of time; and when the scud cleared enough for him to make out the outline of his instruments he could not see the face of his clock, his height or speed recorders, or anything else, until he had scraped the packed snow off them.

But this time, according to the compass, he was flying west and in the right direction. So much he just had time to see when they plunged again into another whirling smother of fine snow. They flew through that for minutes which might have been seconds or hours for all the pilot knew. He could see nothing through his clogged goggles, that blurred up faster than he could wipe them clear; he could hear nothing except, dully, the roar of his engine; he could feel nothing except the grip of the joy-stick, numbly, through his thick gloves. He kept the “Osca” flying level by sheer sense of feel, and at times had all he could do to fight back a wave of panic whichrushed on him with a belief that the machine was side-slipping or falling into a spin that would bring him crashing to earth.

When the snow cleared again and he was able to see his lighted instruments he made haste to brush them clear of snow and peer anxiously at them. He found he was a good thousand feet up and started at once to lift a bit higher for safety’s sake. By the compass he was still flying homeward, and by the time—the time—he stared hard at his clock ... and found it was stopped. But the petrol in his main tank was almost run out, and according to that he ought to be well over the British lines—if he had kept anything like a straight course. He held a brief and shouted conversation with his observer. “Don’t know where I am. Lost. Think we’re over our lines.”

“Shoot a light, eh?” answered the observer, “and try’n’ land. I’m frozen stiff.”

They both peered anxiously out round as their Verey light shot out and floated down; but they could see no sign of a flare or an answering light. They fired another signal,and still had no reply; and then, “I’m going down,” yelled the pilot, shutting off his engine and letting the machine glide down in a slow sweeping circle. He could see nothing of the ground when the altimeter showed 500 feet, nor at 300, nor at 200, so opened the throttle and picked up speed again. “Shove her down,” yelled the observer. “More snow coming.”

Another Verey light, shot straight down overboard, showed a glimpse of a grass field, and Reddie swung gently round, and slid downward again. At the same time he fired a landing light fixed out under his lower wing-tip in readiness for just such an occasion as this, and by its glowing vivid white light made a fairly good landing on rough grass land. He shut the engine off at once, because he had no idea how near he was to the edge of the field or what obstacles they might bump if they taxied far, and the machine came quickly to rest. The two men sat still for a minute breathing a sigh of thankfulness that they were safe to ground, then turned and looked at each other in the dying lightof the flare. Stiffly they stood up, climbed clumsily out of their places, and down on to the wet ground. Another flurry of snow was falling, but now that they were at rest the snow was floating and drifting gently down instead of beating in their faces with hurricane force as it did when they were flying.

Reddie flapped his arms across his chest and stamped his numbed feet. Walk Jones pulled his gloves off and breathed on his stiff fingers. “I’m fair froze,” he mumbled. “Wonder where we are, and how far from the ‘drome?”

“Lord knows,” returned Reddie. “I don’t know even where the line is—ahead or astern, right hand or left.”

“Snow’s clearing again,” said Jones. “Perhaps we’ll get a bearing then, and I’ll go ’n’ hunt for a camp or a cottage, or anyone that’ll give us a hot drink.”

“Wait a bit,” said Reddie. “Stand where you are and let’s give a yell. Some sentry or someone’s bound to hear us. Snow’s stopping all right; but, Great Scott! isn’t it dark.”

Presently they lifted their voices and yelled an “Ahoy” together at the pitch of their lungs. There was no answer, and after a pause they yelled again, still without audible result.

“Oh, curse!” said Jones, shivering. “I’m not going to hang about here yelping like a lost dog. And we might hunt an hour for a cottage. I’m going to get aboard again and loose off a few rounds from my machine-gun into the ground. That will stir somebody up and bring ’em along.”

“There’s the line,” said Reddie suddenly. “Look!” and he pointed to where a faint glow rose and fell, lit and faded, along the horizon. “And the guns,” he added, as they saw a sheet of light jump somewhere in the distance and heard thebumpof the report. Other gun-flashes flickered and beat across the dark sky. “Funny,” said Reddie; “I’d have sworn I turned round as we came down, and I thought the lines were dead the other way.”

The observer was fumbling about to get his foot in the step. “I thought they were wayout to the right,” he said. “But I don’t care a curse where they are. I want a camp or a French cottage with coffee on the stove. I’ll see if I can’t shoot somebody awake.”

“Try one more shout first,” said Reddie, and they shouted together again.

“Got ’im,” said Reddie joyfully, as a faint hail came in response, and Jones took his foot off the step and began to fumble under his coat for a torch. “Here!” yelled Reddie. “This way! Here!”

They heard the answering shouts draw nearer, and then, just as Jones found his torch and was pulling it out from under his coat, Reddie clutched at his arm. “What—what was it——” he gasped. “Did you hear what they called?”

“No, couldn’t understand,” said Jones in some surprise at the other’s agitation. “They’re French, I suppose; farm people, most like.”

“It wasGerman,” said Reddie hurriedly. “There again, hear that?We’ve dropped in Hunland.”

“Hu-Hunland!” stammered Jones; thendesperately, “It can’t be. You sure it isn’t French—Flemish, perhaps?”

“Flemish—here,” said Reddie, dismissing the idea, as Jones admitted he might well do, so far south in the line. “I know little enough German, but I know French well enough; and that’s not French. We’re done in, Walk.”

“Couldn’t we bolt for it,” said Walk, looking hurriedly round. “It’s dark, and we know where the lines are.”

“What hope of getting through them?” said Reddie, speaking in quick whispers. “But we’ve got a better way. We’ll make a try. Here, quickly, and quiet as you can—get to the prop and swing it when I’m ready. We’ll chance a dash for it.”

Both knew the chances against them, knew that in front of the machine might lie a ditch, a tree, a hedge, a score of things that would trip them as they taxied to get speed to rise; they knew too that the Germans were coming closer every moment, that they might be on them before they could get the engine started, that they would probably start shooting at the first sound of her start. All these thingsand a dozen others raced through their minds in an instant; but neither hesitated, both moved promptly and swiftly. Reddie clambered up and into his seat; Walk Jones jumped to the propeller, and began to wind it backwards to “suck in” the petrol to the cylinders. “When she starts, jump to the wing-tip and try ’n’ swing her round,” called Reddie in quick low tones. “It’ll check her way. Then you must jump for it, and hang on and climb in as we go. Yell when you’re aboard. All ready now.”

A shout came out of the darkness—a shout and an obvious question in German. “Contact,” said Walk Jones, and swung the propeller his hardest. He heard the whirr of the starter as Reddie twirled it rapidly. “Off,” called Jones as he saw the engine was not giving sign of life, and “Off” answered Reddie, cutting off the starting current.

Another shout came, and with it this time what sounded like an imperative command. Reddie cursed his lack of knowledge of German. He could have held them in play a minute if—— “Contact,” came Walk’s voiceagain. “Contact,” he answered, and whirled the starter madly again. There was still no movement, no spark of life from the engine. Reddie groaned, and Walk Jones, sweating despite the cold over his exertions on the propeller, wound it back again and swung it forward with all his weight. His thick leather coat hampered him. He tore it off and flung it to the ground, and tried again.

So they tried and failed, tried and failed, time and again, while all the time the shouts were coming louder and from different points, as if a party had split up and was searching the field. A couple of electric torches threw dancing patches of light on the ground, lifted occasionally and flashed round. One was coming straight towards them, and Reddie with set teeth waited the shout of discovery he knew must come presently, and cursed Walk’s slowness at the “prop.”

Again on the word he whirled the starter, and this time “Whur-r-r-rum,” answered the engine, suddenly leaping to life; “Whur-r-r-ROO-OO-OO-OOM-ur-r-r-umph,” as Reddieeased and opened the throttle. He heard a babel of shouts and yells, and saw the light-patches come dancing on the run towards them. A sudden recollection of the only two German words he knew came to him. “Ja wohl,” he yelled at the pitch of his voice, “Ja wohl”; then in lower hurried tones, “Swing her, Walk; quick, swing her,” and opened the engine out again. The running lights stopped for a minute at his yell, and Walk Jones jumped to the wing-tip, shouted “Right!” and hung on while Reddie started to taxi the machine forward. His weight and leverage brought her lumbering round, the roar of engine and propeller rising and sinking as Reddie manipulated the throttle, and Reddie yelling his “Ja wohl,” every time the noise died down.

“Get in, Walk; get aboard,” he shouted, when the nose was round and pointing back over the short stretch they had taxied on landing, and which he therefore knew was clear running for at least a start. He heard another order screamed in German, and next instant thebangof a rifle, not more apparentlythan a score of yards away. He kept the machine lumbering forward, restraining himself from opening his engine out, waiting in an agony of apprehension for Walk’s shout. He felt the machine lurch and sway, and the kicking scramble his observer made to board her, heard next instant his yelling “Right-oh!” and opened the throttle full as another couple of rifles bang-banged.

The rifles had little terror either for him or the observer, because both knew there were bigger and deadlier risks to run in the next few seconds. There were still desperately long odds against their attempt succeeding. In the routine method of starting a machine, chocks are placed in front of the wheels and the engine is given a short full-power run and a longer easier one to warm the engine and be sure all is well; then the chocks are pulled away and she rolls off, gathering speed as she goes, until she has enough for her pilot to lift her into the air. Here, their engine was stone cold, they knew nothing of what lay in front of them, might crash into something before they left the ground, mightrise, and even then catch some house or tree-top, and travelling at the speed they would by then have attained—well, the Lord help them!

Reddie had to chance everything, and yet throw away no shadow of a chance. He opened the throttle wide, felt the machine gather speed, bumping and jolting horribly over the rough field, tried to peer down at the ground to see how fast they moved, could see nothing, utterly black nothing, almost panicked for one heart-stilling instant as he looked ahead again and thought he saw the blacker shadow of something solid in front of him, clenched his teeth and held straight on until he felt by the rush of wind on his face he had way enough, and pulled the joy-stick in to him. With a sigh of relief he felt the jolting change to a smooth swift rush, held his breath, and with a pull on the stick zoomed her up, levelled her out again (should clear anything but a tall tree now), zoomed her up again. He felt a hand thumping on his shoulder, heard Walk’s wild exultant yell—“‘Ra-a-ay!” and, still lifting her steadily,swung his machine’s nose for the jumping lights that marked the trenches.

They landed safe on their own ’drome ground half an hour after. The officer whose duty it was for the night to look after the landing-ground and light the flares in answer to the returning pilots’ signals, walked over to them as they came to rest.

“Hullo, you two,” he said. “Where th’ blazes you been till this time! We’d just about put you down as missing.”

Reddie and Walk had stood up in their cock-pits and, without a spoken word, were solemnly shaking hands.

Reddie looked overboard at the officer on the ground. “You may believe it, Johnny, or you may not,” he said, “but we’ve been down into Hunland.”

“Down into hell!” said Johnny. “Quit jokin’. What kept you so late?”

“You’ve said it, Johnny,” said Reddie soberly. “Down into hell—and out again.”

They shook hands again, solemnly.

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