‘First, take off those Turkey carpets you’re wearing,’ said Ken quickly.  ‘If you don’t, it’s our chaps will fill you with lead.’

They all peeled off their Turkish overcoats, then carrying the German they started along the ledge.  Rounding the curve, Ken found that the ledge widened and merged in the scrub-clad slope opposite the head of the little bay.

He stopped and glanced round.  The Turkish snipers were still busy, and the sharp crack of cordite echoed from scores of different hiding-places along the hills.  He and his companions had about one hundred and fifty yards to go before reaching the trench held by their battalions, and the light was growing stronger every moment.

In spite of his anxiety to bring in his prisoner, it seemed clear that the risk was too great.  Their only chance of crossing the open in safety was to duck and crawl.

‘It’s no use,’ he said regretfully.  ’We’ll have to leave this chap behind.  We’ll all be shot as full of holes as a sieve if we try to carry him.’

‘Rats, Carrington!’ retorted Roy Horan.  ’Go home without our prisoner?  Never!  Besides, the Turks won’t shoot their own officer.  Come on, Dave,’ he said, and before Ken could say another word the two were off as hard as they could go, carrying their heavy burden.

Ken had many doubts as to the Turks refraining from shooting, for fear of hitting the German.  In fact, knowing as he did the feeling which existed between the bullying Prussian and the placid Turk, he rather thought the case would be exactly the opposite.

Whatever the reason, at any rate they had covered nearly half the distance before they began to draw fire.  Then bullets began to ping ominously close, and little jets of dust to rise from the dry soil all around them.

Suddenly Ken’s hat flew from his head, and as he stooped quickly to recover it, the fat German gave a yell like a stuck pig, and kicked out so convulsively that his bearers incontinently dropped him.

In an instant he was on his feet, and running like a rabbit, at the same time giving vent to a series of sharp yelps like a beaten puppy.

‘The blighter!  He was shamming!’ roared Roy, darting off in pursuit, regardless of the bullets.

‘It was a bullet woke him up anyhow,’ exclaimed Dave, as he scurried after.

The Prussian was beside himself with pain.  He had been shot through one hand, and there is no more agonising injury.  He ran blindly, and as it chanced almost in a straight line for the trench.

A score of heads popped up to see what was happening, and when their owners realised the truth a roar of laughter burst out all down the trench.

It was not until the German was on the very edge of the trench that he realised where he was.  He spun round to bolt.

But Roy was at his heels.

‘No, ye don’t, fatty,’ said the big New Zealander, and catching the man by the scruff of the neck, gave him a tremendous push which sent him flying over into the trench.  Roy sprang down after him, and a moment later, Dave and Ken hurled themselves into cover.