sistent in any way with their words, I would point out that what two or three may do in perfect safety a body of men may not. They don’t as a rule waste shells on an isolated man in khaki, and these particular trenches were out of rifle range.
For the time, therefore, we will leave Gerald building up his trench with those twelve silent bodies behind—eloquent testimony that appearances are deceitful and that the man on the spot knows best
IV
“Is that the guide? What, you’re the general’s cook! Well, where the devil is the guide? All right, lead on.” The battalion was moving up into the front line trenches, after two uneventful days in reserve. Their lesson well learnt, they had kept under cover, and the only diversion had been the sudden appearance out of heaven of an enormous piece of steel which had descended from the skies with great rapidity and an unpleasant zogging sort of noise. The mystery was un-
