nly one
thing I am afraid of, and that is that there may be some odd saps
running out towards us, especially on our flanks. If so, we shall have
some close work with bombs--a most ungentlemanly method of warfare.
Let us pray for a straightforward frontal attack."

But Brer Bosche had other cards to play first. Suddenly, out of
nowhere, the air was filled with "whizz-bang" shells, moving in a
lightning procession which lasted nearly half an hour. Most of these
plastered the already scarred countenance of Fosse Eight: others
fell shorter and demolished our parapet. When the tempest ceased, as
suddenly as it began, the number of casualties in the crowded trench
was considerable. But there was little time to attend to the wounded.
Already the word was running down, the line--

"Look out to your front!"

Sure enough, over the skyline, two hundred yards away, grey figures
were appearing--not in battalions, but tentatively, in twos and
threes. Next moment a storm of rapid rifle fire broke from the trench.
The grey figures turned and ran. Some disappeared over the horizon,
others dropped flat, others simply curled up and withered. In three
minutes solitude reigned again, and the firing ceased.

"Well, that's that!" observed Captain Wagstaffe to Bobby Little, upon
the right of the Battalion line. "The Bosche has 'bethought himself
and went,' as the poet says. Now he knows we are here, and have
brought our arquebuses with us. He will try something more ikey next
time. Talking of time, what about breakfast? When was our last meal,
Bobby?"

"Haven't the vaguest notion," said Bobby sleepily.

"Well, it's about breakfast-time now. Have a bit of chocolate? It is
all I have."

It was eight o'clock, and perfect silence reigned. All down the line
men, infinitely grubby, were producing still grubbier fragments of
bully-beef and biscuits from their persons. For an hour, squatting
upon the sodden floor of the trench--it was raining yet again--the
unappetising, intermittent meal proceeded.

Then--

"Hallo!" exclaimed Bobby with a jerk (for he was beginning to nod),
"what was that on our right?"

"I'm afraid," replied Wagstaffe, "that it was bombs. It was right in
this trench, too, about a hundred yards long. There must be a sap
leading up there, for the bombers certainly have not advanced
overground. I've been looking out for them since stand-to. Who is this
anxious gentleman?"

A subaltern of the battalion on our right was f