“Now listen carefully,” said Angus, who had just finished scribbling a despatch.  “First of all, you, Bogle, take this message to the telephone, and get it sent to Company Headquarters.  Now you others.  We will wait till that machine-gun has fired another belt.  Then, the moment it has finished, while they are getting out the next belt, I will dash across to the estaminet over there.  M’Snape, you will come with me, but no one else—­yet.  If the estaminet seems capable of being held, I will signal to you, Sergeant Mucklewame, and you will send your party across, in driblets, not forgetting the Lewis gun.  By that time I may have located the German machine-gun, so we should be able to knock it out with the Lewis.”

Further speech was cut short by a punctual fantasia from the gun in question.  Angus and M’Snape crouched behind the shattered wall, awaiting their chance.  The firing ceased.

“Now!” whispered Angus.

Next moment officer and corporal were flying across the open, and before the mechanical Boche gunner could jerk the new belt into position, both had found sanctuary within the open doorway of the half-ruined estaminet.

Nay, more than both; for as the panting pair flung themselves into shelter, a third figure, short and stout, in an ill-fitting kilt, tumbled heavily through the doorway after them.  Simultaneously a stream of machine-gun bullets went storming past.

“Just in time!” observed Angus, well pleased.  “Bogle, what are you doing here?”

“I was given tae unnerstand, sirr,” replied Mr. Bogle calmly, “when I jined the regiment, that in action an officer’s servant stands by his officer.”

“That is true,” conceded Angus; “but you had no right to follow me against orders.  Did you not hear me say that no one but Corporal M’Snape was to come?”

“No, sirr.  I doubt I was away at the ’phone.”

“Well, now you are here, wait inside this doorway, where you can see Sergeant Mucklewame’s party, and look out for signals.  M’Snape, let us find that machine-gun.”

The pair made their way to the hitherto blind side of the building, and cautiously peeped through a much-perforated shutter in the living-room.

“Do you see it, sirr?” inquired M’Snape eagerly.

Angus chuckled.

“See it?  Fine!  It is right in the open, in the middle of the street.  Look!”

He relinquished his peep-hole.  The German machine-gun was mounted in the street itself, behind an improvised barrier of bricks and sandbags.  It was less than a hundred yards away, sited in a position which, though screened from the view of Angus’s platoon farther down, enabled it to sweep all the ground in front of the position.  This it was now doing with great intensity, for the brief public appearance of Angus and M’Snape had effectually converted intermittent into continuous fire.

“We must get the Lewis gun over at once,” muttered Angus.  “It can knock that breastwork to pieces.”