“So have we all,” said Colonel Kemp.

“I forgot to tell you, Colonel,” interposed Wagstaffe, “that I met young Osborne at Divisional Headquarters last night.  You remember, he left us some time ago to join the Hush!  Hush!  Brigade.”

“I remember,” said the Colonel.

By this time the party, including the Gunner Captain, were filing along a communication trench, lately the property of some German gentlemen, on their way back to headquarters.

“Did he tell you anything, Wagstaffe?” continued Colonel Kemp.

“Not much.  Apparently the time of the H.H.B. is not yet.  But he made an appointment with me for this evening—­in the gloaming, so to speak.  He is sending a car.  If all he says is true, the Boche Emma Gee is booked for an eye-opener in a few weeks’ time.”

II

That evening a select party of sight-seers were driven to a secluded spot behind the battle line.  Here they were met by Master Osborne, obviously inflated with some important matter.

“I’ve got leave from my C.O. to show you the sights, sir,” he announced to Colonel Kemp.  “If you will all stand here and watch that wood on the opposite side of this clearing, you may see something.  We don’t show ourselves much except in late evening, so this is our parade hour.”

The little group took up its appointed stand and waited in the gathering dusk.  In the east the sky was already twinkling with intermittent Verey lights.  All around the British guns were thundering forth their hymns of hate—­full-throated now, for the hour for the next great assault was approaching.

Wagstaffe’s thoughts went back to a certain soft September night last year, when he and Blaikie had stood on the eastern outskirts of Bethune listening to a similar overture—­the prelude to the Battle of Loos.  But this overture was ten times more awful, and, from a material British point of view, ten times more inspiring.  It would have thrilled old Blaikie’s fighting spirit, thought Wagstaffe.  But Loos had taken his friend from him, and he, Wagstaffe, only was left.  What did fate hold in store for him to-morrow? he wondered.  And Bobby?  They had both escaped marvellously so far.  Well, better men had gone before them.  Perhaps—­

Fingers of steel bit into his biceps muscle, and the excited whinny of Angus M’Lachlan besought him to look!

Down in the forest something stirred.  But it was not the note of a bird, as the song would have us believe.  From the depths of the wood opposite came a crackling, crunching sound, as of some prehistoric beast forcing its way through tropical undergrowth.  And then, suddenly, out from the thinning edge there loomed a monster—­a monstrosity.  It did not glide, it did not walk.  It wallowed.  It lurched, with now and then a laborious heave of its shoulders.  It fumbled its way over a low bank matted with scrub.  It