ke and
darkness began to take on the livid colour that announced the
coming of daybreak. A messenger ran in from the Colonel; the
Missourians had not yet come up, and his telephone communication
with them was cut off. He was afraid they had got lost in the
bombardment. "The Colonel says you are to send two men back to
bring them up; two men who can take charge if they're stampeded."

When the messenger shouted this order, Gerhardt and Hicks looked
at each other quickly, and volunteered to go.

Claude hesitated. Hicks and David waited for no further consent;
they ran down the communication and disappeared.

Claude stood in the smoke that was slowly growing greyer, and
looked after them with the deepest stab of despair he had ever
known. Only a man who was bewildered and unfit to be in command
of other men would have let his best friend and his best officer
take such a risk. He was standing there under shelter, and his
two friends were going back through that curtain of flying steel,
toward the square from which the lost battalion had last
reported. If he knew them, they would not lose time following the
maze of trenches; they were probably even now out on the open,
running straight through the enemy barrage, vaulting trench tops.

Claude turned and went back into the loop. Well, whatever
happened, he had worked with brave men. It was worth having lived
in this world to have known such men. Soldiers, when they were in
a tight place, often made secret propositions to God; and now he
found himself offering terms: If They would see to it that David
came back, They could take the price out of him. He would pay.
Did They understand?

An hour dragged by. Hard on the nerves, waiting. Up the
communication came a train with ammunition and coffee for the
loop. The men thought Headquarters did pretty well to get hot
food to them through that barrage. A message came up in the
Colonel's hand:

"Be ready when the barrage stops."

Claude took this up and showed it to the machine gunners in the
Snout. Turning back, he ran into Hicks, stripped to his shirt and
trousers, as wet as if he had come out of the river, and splashed
with blood. His hand was wrapped up in a rag. He put his mouth to
Claude's ear and shouted: "We found them. They were lost. They're
coming. Send word to the Colonel."

"Where's Gerhardt?"

"He's coming; bringing them up. God, it's stopped!"

The bombardment ceased with a suddenness that was stupefying.