a clear two miles of the soil of France, my son.”  The Major swept the horizon with his glasses.  “Let me see:  that is probably Hulluch away on our right front:  the Loos towers must be in line with us on our extreme right, but we can’t see them for those hillocks.  There is our old friend Fosse Eight towering over us on our left rear.  I don’t know anything about the ground on our absolute left, but so long as that flathead regiment hold on to their trench, we can’t go far wrong.  Waddell, I don’t like those cottages on our left front.  They block the view, and also spell machine-guns.  I see one or two very suggestive loopholes in those red-tiled roofs.  Go and draw Ayling’s attention to them.  A little preliminary strafing will do them no harm.”

Five minutes later one of Ayling’s machine-guns spoke out, and a cascade of tiles came sliding down the roofs of the offending cottages.

“That will tickle them up, if they have any guns set up on those rafters,” observed the Major, with ghoulish satisfaction.  “I wonder if Brer Bosche is going to attack.  I hope he does.  There is only one thing I am afraid of, and that is that there may be some odd saps running out towards us, especially on our flanks.  If so, we shall have some close work with bombs—­a most ungentlemanly method of warfare.  Let us pray for a straightforward frontal attack.”

But Brer Bosche had other cards to play first.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, the air was filled with “whizz-bang” shells, moving in a lightning procession which lasted nearly half an hour.  Most of these plastered the already scarred countenance of Fosse Eight:  others fell shorter and demolished our parapet.  When the tempest ceased, as suddenly as it began, the number of casualties in the crowded trench was considerable.  But there was little time to attend to the wounded.  Already the word was running down, the line—­

“Look out to your front!”

Sure enough, over the skyline, two hundred yards away, grey figures were appearing—­not in battalions, but tentatively, in twos and threes.  Next moment a storm of rapid rifle fire broke from the trench.  The grey figures turned and ran.  Some disappeared over the horizon, others dropped flat, others simply curled up and withered.  In three minutes solitude reigned again, and the firing ceased.

“Well, that’s that!” observed Captain Wagstaffe to Bobby Little, upon the right of the Battalion line.  “The Bosche has ’bethought himself and went,’ as the poet says.  Now he knows we are here, and have brought our arquebuses with us.  He will try something more ikey next time.  Talking of time, what about breakfast?  When was our last meal, Bobby?”

“Haven’t the vaguest notion,” said Bobby sleepily.

“Well, it’s about breakfast-time now.  Have a bit of chocolate?  It is all I have.”

It was eight o’clock, and perfect silence reigned.  All down the line men, infinitely grubby, were producing still grubbier fragments of bully-beef and biscuits from their persons.  For an hour, squatting upon the sodden floor of the trench—­it was raining yet again—­the unappetising, intermittent meal proceeded.