The
men in the loop gasped and crouched as if they were falling from
a height. The air, rolling black with smoke and stifling with the
smell of gases and burning powder, was still as death. The
silence was like a heavy anaesthetic.

Claude ran back to the Snout to see that the gun teams were
ready. "Wake up, boys! You know why we're here!"

Bert Fuller, who was up in the look-out, dropped back into the
trench beside him. "They're coming, sir."

Claude gave the signal to the machine guns. Fire opened all along
the loop. In a moment a breeze sprang up, and the heavy smoke
clouds drifted to the rear. Mounting to the firestep, he peered
over. The enemy was coming on eight deep, on the left of the
Boar's Head, in long, waving lines that reached out toward the
main trench. Suddenly the advance was checked. The files of
running men dropped behind a wrinkle in the earth fifty yards
forward and did not instantly re-appear. It struck Claude that
they were waiting for something; he ought to be clever enough to
know for what, but he was not. The Colonel's line man came up to
him.

"Headquarters has a runner from the Missourians. They'll be up in
twenty minutes. The Colonel will put them in here at once. Till
then you must manage to hold."

"We'll hold. Fritz is behaving queerly. I don't understand his
tactics..."

While he was speaking, everything was explained. The Boar's Snout
spread apart with an explosion that split the earth, and went up
in a volcano of smoke and flame. Claude and the Colonel's
messenger were thrown on their faces. When they got to their
feet, the Snout was a smoking crater full of dead and dying men.
The Georgia gun teams were gone.

It was for this that the Hun advance had been waiting behind the
ridge. The mine under the Snout had been made long ago, probably,
on a venture, when the Hun held Moltke trench for months without
molestation. During the last twenty-four hours they had been
getting their explosives in, reasoning that the strongest
garrison would be placed there.

Here they were, coming on the run. It was up to the rifles. The
men who had been knocked down by the shock were all on their feet
again. They looked at their officer questioningly, as if the
whole situation had changed. Claude felt they were going soft
under his eyes. In a moment the Hun bombers would be in on them,
and they would break. He ran along the trench, pointing over the
sand bags and shouting, "It's up to you, it's