Part 41 (1/2)

”What a night!” murmured Harry Hawke, as he lay on his stomach in two inches of water some twenty yards in front of the trench with his pal, Tiddler, beside him. ”An' me on the peg to-morrer!”

”Bet you there won't be no show,” said Tiddler.

”Don't you make too sure of that, c.o.c.ky. I'll put a s.h.i.+lling on Mr.

Dashwood both ways, and he's got a notion that something's up.”

They both looked round, as a slim figure in a thin mackintosh crawled up alongside.

”Hear anything, Hawke?” said Dennis.

”Not so far, sir, but it's bloomin' difficult to 'ear to-night--the rain makes such a patter on the chalk, and it's fillin' up the sh.e.l.l 'oles a fair knock-art.”

”Well now, look here,” said Dennis impressively, ”I'm going to shove along, and I want you both to listen with your eyes. You know the Morse code, and if you see anything straight in front of you, pa.s.s the word back to Mr. Wetherby on the parapet behind.”

”But you ain't goin' alone, sir! You'll let one of us come wiv yer!”

”I am going alone, Hawke. I marked the lie of the ground before the light went, and it's as easy as walking down Piccadilly. If I can't find out what I want I shall come back; anyhow, look and listen!” And he glided off into the rain and was lost to view long before the slither of his footsteps had died away.

Two hundred yards separated friend and foe; two hundred yards of pulverised No Man's Land, now soaked like a sponge. About midway stretched an unfinished German trench, from which our guns had driven the enemy before they had had time to complete it. It was little more than a wet shallow ditch now, with a line of sandbags on the British side, and when Dennis had crossed it he continued his perilous course on hands and knees.

It was a zigzag course to avoid the thirty or forty sh.e.l.l holes that our guns had made, and as he wormed himself forward the darkness of the night and the strange silence of the enemy batteries on that sector confirmed him more than ever in his conviction that something was in preparation.

The trench he was approaching was of quite unusual strength, with a formidable redoubt making a salient in one place, and as he reached the foot of it he knew that a wall of sandbags nearly fifteen feet high towered above his head.

He had seen that before the light went. Now, in the pitchy darkness of the drenching rain, as he crouched at the foot of the wall he could hear the hoa.r.s.e murmur of many voices behind it, as it seemed to him.

He looked back across that dreary No Man's Land, and then again at the barrier in front of him, and, carrying his life in his hand as he well knew, began to worm his way up the face of the sandbags.

The actual climb presented little difficulty to an athlete; the danger was if a rocket should soar into the sky and some sharp eye discover him.

But the desire to learn something of the enemy's movements from their conversation deadened all sense of risk, until he had reached the last row of sandbags but one, when, without any warning, a group of heads popped up over the parapet, and five officers with night gla.s.ses examined the British line.

He could have reached out and taken the first one by the collar, so close was he, and clinging there, ready to drop and bolt for it, he listened with all his ears.

Secure from all eavesdropping--for who would venture across that No Man's Land on such a night?--the five men talked freely, with all the blatant self-a.s.sumption of Prussian sabre rattlers, and the wet wind that brought their words to him brought also the smell of their cigars.

But if the listener's pulse quickened at their conversation, his heart beat faster still at the conclusion of it.

”By the way, Von Dussel,” said one of them, ”how comes it that you are going in with us to-night? Surely you are not abandoning the role that you have filled with such success?” And Dennis recognised the short laugh that preluded the reply.

”Not at all, Herr Colonel,” said the nearest of the five, ”but I have had no word to-day from my wife, so I know it is of no use penetrating their lines. Besides, I have an old grudge against the regiment in front of us--a quarrel I hope to settle to-night.”

”You may rest quite easy that you will do so,” laughed the colonel; ”our five battalions of Prussians are going to do what their Bavarian and Saxon comrades failed to accomplish. Let me see, it is General Dashwood's Brigade that is before us here, _nicht wahr?_”

”Yes,” chortled Von Dussel; ”and it is with the Dashwood family that I hope to renew an interrupted acquaintance, the pig hounds!”

Dennis had never found it necessary to place such a powerful restraint upon himself as he did at that moment, and it was perhaps a lucky thing that the five men withdrew as the spy spoke.