Part 31 (2/2)

He examined the map. ”Cross-roads--eh? That means at least one estaminet. One estaminet, with Bosches inside, complete! Think of our little bullets all popping in through the open door, five hundred a minute! Think of the rush to crawl under the counter! It might be a Headquarters? We might get Von Kluck or Rupy of Bavaria, splitting a half litre together. We shall earn Military Crosses over this, my boy,” concluded the imaginative youth. ”Wow, wow!”

”The worst of indirect fire,” mused the less gifted Ayling, ”is that you never can tell whether you have hit your target or not. In fact, you can't even tell whether there was a target there to hit.”

”Never mind; we'll chance it,” replied Ainslie. ”And if the Bosche artillery suddenly wakes up and begins retaliating on the wrong spot with whizz-bangs--well, we shall know we've tickled up _somebody_, anyhow! Nine o'clock, you say?”

Here, again, is a bombing party, prepared to steal out under cover of night. They are in charge of one Simson, recently promoted to Captain, supported by that h.o.a.ry fire-eater, Sergeant Carfrae. The party numbers seven all told, the only other member thereof with whom we are personally acquainted being Lance-Corporal M'Snape, the ex-Boy Scout.

Every man wears a broad canvas belt full of pockets: each pocket contains a bomb.

Simson briefly outlines the situation. Our fire-trench here runs round the angle of an orchard, which brings it uncomfortably close to the Germans. The Germans are quite as uncomfortable about the fact as we are--some of us are rather inclined to overlook this important feature of the case--and they have run a sap out towards the nearest point of the Orchard Trench (so our aeroplane observers report), in order to supervise our movements more closely.

”It may only be a listening-post,” explains Simson to his bombers, ”with one or two men in it. On the other hand, they may be collecting a party to rush us. There are some big sh.e.l.l-craters there, and they may be using one of them as a saphead. Anyhow, our orders are to go out to-night and see. If we find the sap, with any Germans in it, we are to bomb them out of it, and break up the sap as far as possible.

Advance, and follow me.”

The party steals out. The night is very still, and a young and inexperienced moon is making a somewhat premature appearance behind the Bosche trenches. The ground is covered with weedy gra.s.s--disappointed hay--which makes silent progress a fairly simple matter. The bombers move forward in extended order searching for the saphead. Simson, in the centre, pauses occasionally to listen, and his well-drilled line pauses with him. Sergeant Carfrae calls stertorously upon the left. Out on the right is young M'Snape, tingling.

They are half-way across now, and the moon is marking time behind a cloud.

Suddenly there steals to the ears of M'Snape--apparently from the recesses of the earth just in front of him--a deep, hollow sound, the sound of men talking in some cavernous s.p.a.ce. He stops dead, and signals to his companions to do likewise. Then he listens again. Yes, he can distinctly hear guttural voices, and an occasional _clink, clink_. The saphead has been reached, and digging operations are in progress.

A whispered order comes down the line that M'Snape is to ”investigate.” He wriggles forward until his progress is arrested by a stunted bush. Very stealthily he rises to his knees and peers over. As he does so, a chance star-sh.e.l.l bursts squarely over him, and comes sizzling officiously down almost on to his back. His head drops like a stone into the bush, but not before the ghostly magnesium flare has shown him what he came out to see--a deep sh.e.l.l-crater. The crater is full of Germans. They look like grey beetles in a trap, and are busy with pick and shovel, apparently ”improving” the crater and connecting it with their own fire-trenches. They have no sentry out. _Dormitat Homerus._

M'Snape worms his way back, and reports. Then, in accordance with an oft-rehea.r.s.ed scheme, the bombing party forms itself into an arc of a circle at a radius of some twenty yards from the stunted bush. (Not the least of the arts of bomb-throwing is to keep out of range of your own bombs.) Every man's hand steals to his pocketed belt. Next moment Simson flings the first bomb. It flies fairly into the middle of the crater.

Half a dozen more go swirling after it. There is a shattering roar; a cloud of smoke; a m.u.f.fled rush, of feet; silence; some groans.

Almost simultaneously the German trenches are in an uproar. A dozen star-sh.e.l.ls leap to the sky; there is a hurried outburst of rifle fire; a machine-gun begins to patter out a stuttering malediction.

Meanwhile our friends, who have exhibited no pedantic anxiety to remain and behold the result of their labours, are lying upon their stomachs in a convenient fold in the ground, waiting patiently until such time as it shall be feasible to complete their homeward journey.

Half an hour later they do so, and roll one by one over the parapet into the trench. Casualties are slight. Private Nimmo has a bullet-wound in the calf of his leg, and Sergeant Carfrae, whom Nature does not permit to lie as flat as the others, will require some repairs to the pleats of his kilt.

”All present?” inquires Simson.

It is discovered that M'Snape has not returned. Anxious eyes peer over the parapet. The moon is stronger now, but it is barely possible to distinguish objects clearly for more than a few yards.

A star-sh.e.l.l bursts, and heads sink below the parapet. A German bullet pa.s.ses overhead, with a sound exactly like the crack of a whip.

Silence and comparative darkness return. The heads go up again.

”I'll give him five minutes more, and then go and look for him,” says Simson. ”Hallo!”

A small bush, growing just outside the barbed wire, rises suddenly to its feet; and, picking its way with incredible skill through the nearest opening, runs at full speed for the parapet. Next moment it tumbles over into the trench.

Willing hands extracted M'Snape from his arboreal envelope--he could probably have got home quite well without it, but once a Boy Scout, always a Boy Scout--and he made his report.

”I went back to have a look-see into the crater, sirr.”

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