M'Slattery.

Straightway the enemy observed the oncoming reinforcements, and
shrapnel began to fly. The men pressed on, at a steady double now.
M'Ostrich was the first to go down. Game to the last, he waved
encouragement to his mates with a failing arm as they passed over his
body.

"Come along, boys!" cried Captain Blaikie, suddenly eloquent. "There
is the trench! The other lads are waiting for you. Come along!
Charge!"

The men needed no further bidding. They came on--with a ragged
cheer--and assuredly would have arrived, but for one thing. Suddenly
they faltered, and stopped dead.

Captain Blaikie turned to his faithful subaltern panting behind him.

"We are done in, Bobby," he said. "Look! Wire!"

He was right. This particular trench, it was true, was occupied by our
friends; but it had been constructed in the first instance for the use
of our enemies. Consequently it was wired, and heavily wired, upon the
side facing the British advance.

Captain Blaikie, directing operations with a walking-stick as if the
whole affair were an Aldershot field-day, signalled to the Company to
lie down, and began to unbutton a leather pouch in his belt.

"You too, Bobby," he said; "and don't dare to move a muscle until you
get the order!"

He strolled forward, pliers in hand, and began methodically to cut a
passage, strand by strand, through the forest of wire.

Then it was that invisible machine-guns opened, and a very gallant
officer and Scotsman fell dead upon the field of honour.

Half an hour later, "A" Company, having expended all their ammunition
and gained never a yard, fell back upon the rest of the Battalion.
Including Bobby Little (who seemed to bear a charmed life), they did
not represent the strength of a platoon.

"I wonder what they will do with us next," remarked Mr. Waddell, who
had finished his bully.

"If they have any sense of decency," said Major Kemp, "they will send
us back to rest a bit, and put another Division in. We have opened the
ball and done a lot of dirty work for them, and have lost a lot of men
and officers. Bed for me, please!"

"I should be more inclined to agree with you, Major," said Wagstaffe,
"if only we had a bit more to show for our losses."

"We haven't done so badly," replied Kemp, who was growing more
cheerful under the influence of hot cocoa. "We have got the
Hohenzollern, and the Bosche first line at least, and probably Fosse
Eight. On the right I hear we have taken