Put it
as briefly as you can, but make sure he understands. He has a good
signaller with him. Send Bogle to report when you have finished. Now
repeat what I have said to you.... That's right. Carry on!"

M'Snape was gone. Angus, left alone, pensively restored the safety-pin
to the grenade, and laid the grenade upon the ground beside him. Then
he proceeded to write a brief letter in his field message-book. This
he placed in an envelope which he took from his breast pocket. The
envelope was already addressed--to the _Reverend Neil M'Lachlan, The
Manse_, in a very remote Highland village. (Angus had no mother.) He
closed the envelope, initialled it, and buttoned it up in his breast
pocket again. After that he took up his grenade and proceeded to make
a further examination of the premises. Presently he found what he
wanted; and by the time Bogle arrived to announce that Sergeant
Mucklewame had signalled "message understood," his arrangements were
complete.

"Stay by this small hole in the wall, Bogle," he said, "and the moment
the Lewis gun arrives tell them to mount it here and open fire on the
enemy gun."

He left the room, leaving Bogle alone, to listen to the melancholy
rustle of peeling wall-paper within and the steady crackling of
bullets without. But when, peering through the improvised loophole, he
next caught sight of his officer, Angus had emerged from the house by
the cellar window, and was creeping with infinite caution behind the
shelter of what had once been the wall of the _estaminet's_ back-yard
(but was now an uneven bank of bricks, averaging two feet high), in
the direction of the German machine-gun. The gun, oblivious of the
danger now threatening its right front, continued to fire steadily and
hopefully down the street.

Slowly, painfully, Angus crawled on, until he found himself within the
right angle formed by the corner of the yard. He could go no further
without being seen. Between him and the German gun lay the cobbled
surface of the street, offering no cover whatsoever except one mighty
shell-crater, situated midway between Angus and the gun, and full to
the brim with rainwater.

A single peep over the wall gave him his bearings. The gun was too far
away to be reached by a grenade, even when thrown by Angus M'Lachlan.
Still, it would create a diversion. It was a time bomb. He would--

He stretched out his long arm to its full extent behind him, gave
one mighty overarm sweep, and with all th