The long line of red earth twisted away until it was lost in the fringe
of a small copse on the left and had dipped behind a hillock on the
right. Flat open country stretched ahead, grass lands and fields of
stubble, lifeless and deserted.
There was no enemy to be seen and not even a puff of smoke to suggest
his whereabouts. But the air was full of the booming of heavy guns and
the rising eerie shriek of the shrapnel.
Behind the line of red earth lay the British, each man with his rifle
cuddled lovingly to his shoulder, a useless weapon that yet conveyed a
sense of comfort. The shells were bursting with hideous accuracy--sharp
flashes of white light, a loud report and then a murderous rain of
shrapnel.
"Crikey!" said a little man in filthy rain-sodden khaki, as a handful of
earth rose up and hit him on the shoulder; "crikey! that was a narsty
shave for your uncle!"
The big man beside him grunted and shifted half an inch of dead
cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other. "You can 'old my
'and," said he with a grin.
Four or five places up the trench a man stumbled to his knee, coughed
with a rush of blood and toppled over dead.
"Dahn and aht," said the big man gruffly. "Gawd! If we could get at
'em!"
The wail of a distant shell rose to a shriek and the explosion was
instantaneous. The little man suddenly went limp and his rifle rolled
down the bank of the trench.
His friend looked at him with unspeakable anguish. "Got it--in the
perishing neck this time, Bill," gasped the little man.
Bill leaned over and propped his pal's head on his shoulder. A large
dark stain was saturating the wounded man's tunic and he lay very still.
"Bill," very faintly; then, with surprise, "Blimey! 'E's blubbing! Poor
old Bill!"
The big man was shaking with strangled sobs. For some moments he held
his friend close, and it was the dying man who spoke first.
"Are we dahn-'earted?" he said. The whisper went along the line and
swelled into a roar.
The big man choked back his sobs. "No, old pal, no!" he answered, and
"No-o-o-o!" roared the line in unison.
The little man lay back with a contented sigh. "No," he repeated, and
closed his eyes for ever.
* * * * *