scored
its way.

'Get down! get down! Make your men get down,' said the gunner officer
rapidly. 'It's all . . .'

Again there came the swishing rush of the light shells, a series of
quick-following bangs, and a hail of shrapnel tearing across the
trench, before the men had time to duck.

'All a false alarm--just a dodge to get your men's heads up within
reach of their Fizz-Bangs' shrapnel,' said the artilleryman, and called
to the signaller. 'All guns raise twenty-five. Section fire five
seconds. . . . Hullo--hit?' he continued to the Platoon officer, as he
noticed him wiping a smear of blood from his cheek.

'Just a nice little scratch,' said the lad, grinning. 'Enough to let
me swank about being wounded and show off a pretty scar to my best girl
when the war's over.'

'Afraid that last shrapnel burst gave some of your fellows more'n a
pretty scar,' said the gunner. 'But I suppose I'd better slow my guns
up again. . . . Jackson, tell them the attack's evidently
stopped--section fire ten seconds.'

'Can't you keep on belting 'em for a bit?' asked the Platoon officer.
'Might make 'em ease up on us.'

The gunner shook his head regretfully.

'I'd ask nothing better,' he said. 'I could just give those trenches
beans. But our orders are strict, and we daren't waste a round on
anything but an attack. I'll bet that's my Major wanting to know if he
can't slack off a bit more,' he continued, as the signaller called
something about 'Wanted to speak here, sir.'

He went to the instrument and held a short conversation. 'Told you
so,' he said, when he returned to the infantry officer. 'No attack--no
shells. We're stopping again.'

'Doesn't seem to be too much stop about the Germs,' grumbled the
infantryman, as another series of crackling shells shook the ground
close behind them. He moved down the line speaking a few words here
and there to the crouching men of his platoon.

'This is getting serious,' he said when he came back to his place.
'There's more than the half of my lot hit, and the most of them pretty
badly. These shrapnel bullets and shell splinters make a shocking mess
of a wound, y'know.'

'Yes,' said the gunner grimly, 'I know.'

'A perfectly brutal mess,' the subaltern repeated. 'A bullet now is
more or less decent, but those shells of theirs, they don't give a man
a chance to pull through.'

'Ours are as bad, if that's any satisfaction to you,' said the gunner.

'I s'pose so,' ag