from the German trench 80 yards away. The men ducked instinctively.
“Trench mortar,” said one. “Terrible short, though. There goes another,” and craned his neck up to watch the burst.
His officer turned on him savagely, “Keep down, you damned fool,” he said. ‘‘Do you want to give us away?”
Three fears began to obsess him. Perhaps the Germans would retaliate and drop one on to his close-packed party; perhaps the bloody fools had showed themselves already and given the raid away.
“Oh, God,’’ he whispered, ‘‘don’t let us get casualties before we start the show.”
The other fear was caught from the men. All along the line the whisper was running, “Short, they’re droppin’ short an’ missin’ the trench.”
“You fools,” he whispered back, “that’s going for the wire, not the trench,” and reassured them; but all the same, he felt it himself. The bursts seemed short, even for the wire.
Now they had come to the first crater from which a tunnel had been made to the second. “Fix bayonets,” he whispered, “and keep low.”
One by one they slipped into the crater while their officer
