As the Colonel and Claude hurried back to overtake the Company, five big shells screamed over them in rapid succession.  “Run, sir,” the orderly called.  “They’re getting on to us; they’ve shortened the range.”

“That light back there was just enough to give them an idea,” the Colonel muttered.

The bad ground continued for about a mile, and then the advance reached Headquarters, behind the eighth trench of the great system of trenches.  It was an old farmhouse which the Germans had made over with reinforced concrete, lining it within and without, until the walls were six feet thick and almost shell-proof, like a pill-box.  The Colonel sent his orderly to enquire about A Company.  A young Lieutenant came to the door of the farmhouse.

“A Company is ready to go into position, sir.  I brought them up.”

“Where is Captain Brace, Lieutenant?”

“He and both our first lieutenants were killed, Colonel.  Back in that hole.  A shell fell on them not five minutes after you were talking to them.”

“That’s bad.  Any other damage?”

“Yes, sir.  There was a cook wagon struck at the same time; the first one coming along Julius Caesar’s new road.  The driver was killed, and we had to shoot the horses.  Captain Owens, he near got scalded with the stew.”

The Colonel called in the officers one after another and discussed their positions with them.

“Wheeler,” he said when Claude’s turn came, “you know your map?  You’ve noticed that sharp loop in the front trench, in H 2; the Boar’s Head, I believe they call it.  It’s a sort of spear point that reaches out toward the enemy, and it will be a hot place to hold.  If I put your company in there, do you think you can do the Battalion credit in case of a counter attack?”

Claude said he thought so.

“It’s the nastiest bit of the line to hold, and you can tell your men I pay them a compliment when I put them there.”

“All right, sir.  They’ll appreciate it.”

The Colonel bit off the end of a fresh cigar.  “They’d better, by thunder!  If they give way and let the Hun bombers in, it will let down the whole line.  I’ll give you two teams of Georgia machine guns to put in that point they call the Boar’s Snout.  When the Missourians come up tomorrow, they’ll go in to support you, but until then you’ll have to take care of the loop yourselves.  I’ve got an awful lot of trench to hold, and I can’t spare you any more men.”

The Texas men whom the Battalion came up to relieve had been living for sixty hours on their iron rations, and on what they could pick off the dead Huns.  Their supplies had been shelled on the way, and nothing had got through to them.  When the Colonel took Claude and Gerhardt forward to inspect the loop that B Company was to hold, they found a wallow, more like a dump heap than a trench.  The men who had taken the position were almost too weak to stand.  All their officers had been killed, and a sergeant was in command.  He apologized for the condition of the loop.