“If the Germans catch you with that Mauser, they will hang you.  Take the Webley.  Then you can always draw Service ammunition.”  Wagstaffe ran his eye over the rest of Bobby’s outfit.  “Smokes?  Take your pipe and a tinder-box:  you will get baccy and cigarettes to burn out there.  Keep that electric torch; and your binoculars, of course.  Also that small map-case:  it’s a good one.  Also wire-cutters.  You can write letters in your field-message-book.  Your compass is all right.  Add a pair of canvas shoes—­they’re a godsend after a long day,—­an air-pillow, some candle-ends, a tin of vaseline, and a ball of string, and I think you will do.  If you find you still have a pound or so in hand, add a few books—­something to fall back on, in case supplies fail.  Personally, I’m taking ‘Vanity Fair’ and ‘Pickwick.’  But then, I’m old-fashioned.”

* * * * *

Bobby took Wagstaffe’s advice, with the result that that genial obstructionist, the Quartermaster, smiled quite benignly upon him when he presented his valise; while his brother officers, sternly bidden to revise their equipment, were compelled at the last moment to discriminate frantically between the claims of necessity and luxury—­often disastrously.

However, we had all found our feet, and developed into seasoned vagabonds when we set out for the trenches last week.  A few days previously we had been inspected by Sir John French himself.

“And that,” explained Major Kemp to his subalterns, “usually means dirty work at the cross-roads at no very distant period!”

* * * * *

Major Kemp was right—­quite literally right.

Our march took us back to Armentieres, whose sufferings under intermittent shell fire have already been described.  We marched by night, and arrived at breakfast-time.  The same evening two companies and a section of machine-gunners were bidden to equip themselves with picks and shovels and parade at dusk.  An hour later we found ourselves proceeding cautiously along a murky road close behind the trenches.

The big guns were silent, but the snipers were busy on both sides.  A German searchlight was combing out the heavens above:  a constant succession of star-shells illumined the earth beneath.

“What are we going to do to-night, sir?” inquired Bobby Little, heroically resisting an inclination to duck, as a Mauser bullet spat viciously over his head.

“I believe we are going to dig a redoubt behind the trenches,” replied Captain Blaikie.  “I expect to meet an R.E. officer somewhere about here, and he will tell us the worst.  That was a fairly close one, Bobby!  Pass the word down quietly that the men are to keep in to each side of the road, and walk as low as they can.  Ah, there is our sportsman, I fancy.  Good evening!”

A subaltern of that wonderful corps, the Royal Engineers, loomed out of the darkness, removed a cigarette from his mouth, and saluted politely.