cheek.
"I think," he went on, "the next thing I got was a slash wi' a bit
switch he pulled out from the trench wall. We've no sticks like it
here, so I maun just do the best I can instead."

He leant forward and fastened a huge hand on the prisoner's
coat-collar, jerked him to him, and, despite his frantic struggles and
raging tongue, placed him face down across his knees and administered
punishment.

"I think that's about enough," he said, and returned the choking and
spluttering prisoner to his place between the guards.

"He kept me," he said, "on my knees, so I think he ought ... thank ye,"
as the German went down again none too gently. "After that he went on
saying some things it would be waste o' time to repeat. Swine dog was
about the prettiest name he had any use for. But there was another
thing he did; ye'll see some muck on my face and on my jacket. It came
there like this; he took hold o' me by the hair--this way." And
Macalister proceeded to demonstrate as he explained.

"Then--my hands being tied behind my back you will remember, like
this--it was easy enough for him to pull me over on my face--like
this... and rub my face in the mud.... The bottom o' this trench is in
no such a state a' filth as theirs, but it'll just have to do." He
hoisted the German back to his knees. "Then I think it was after that
the pistol and the killing bit came in." And Macalister put his hand to
his pocket and drew out the officer's pistol which he had thrust there.

"He gave me five minutes, so I'll give him the same. Has ony o' ye a
watch?"

A timekeeper stepped forward out of the little knot of spectators that
crowded the trench, and Macalister requested him to notify them when
only one minute of the five was left.

"My manny here was good enough," said Macalister, "to tell me he
wouldna' bandage my eyes, because he wanted me to look down the muzzle
of his pistol; so now," turning to the prisoner, "you can watch my
finger pulling the trigger."

As the four minutes ebbed, the German's courage ran out with them. The
jokes and laughter about him had ceased. Macalister's face was set and
savage, and there was a cold, hard look in his eye, a stern ferocity on
his mud and bloodstained face that convinced the German the end of the
five minutes would also surely see his end.

"One minute to go," said the timekeeper. A sigh of indrawn breaths ran
round the circle, and then tense silence. Outside the trench they were
in the roar of the guns boomed unceasingly, the shells whooped and
screwed overhead, and from oat in front came the crackle and roar of
rifle-fire; and yet, despite the noise, the trench appeared still and
silent. Macalister noted that, as he had noted it over there in the
German trench.

"Time's up," said the man with the watch. The German, looking straight
at the pistol muzzle and the cold eye behind the sights, gasped and
closed his eyes. The silence held, and after a dragging minute the
German opened his eyes, to find the pistol lowered but still pointing
at him.

"To make it right and fair," said Macalister, "his hands should be
loose, because I had managed to loose mine. Will one o' ye ... thank
ye. It's no easy," continued Macalister, "to just fit the rest o' the
program in, seeing that it was here a bomb fell in the trench, an' his
men bein' weel occupied gettin' oot o' its way, I threw him ower the
parapet and dragged him across to oor lines. Maybe ye'd like to try and
throw me out the same way."

The German was perhaps a brave enough man, but the ordeal of those last
five minutes especially had brought his nerve to near its breaking
strain. His lips twitched and quivered, his jaw hung slack, and at
Macalister's invitation he tittered hysterically. There was a stir and
a movement at the back of the spectators that by now thronged the
trench, and an officer pushed his way through.

"What's this?" he said. "Oh, yes! the prisoner. Well, you fellows might
have more sense than heap yourselves up in a crowd like this. One
solitary Krupp dropping in here, and we'd have a pretty-looking mess.
Open out along the trench there, and keep low down. You can be ready to
move in a few minutes now; we are being relieved here and are going
further back. Now what about this prisoner? Who is looking after him?"

"I am, sir," said Macalister. "The Captain said I was to take him
back."

"Right," said the subaltern. "You can take him with you when you go.
They've got some more prisoners up the line, and you can join them."

It was here that the episode ended so far as Macalister was concerned,
and his relations with the German officer thereafter were of the purely
official nature of a prisoner's guard. There were some other
indignities, but in these Macalister had no hand. They were probably
due to the circulation of the tale Macalister had told and
demonstrated, and were altogether above and beyond anything that
usually happens to a German prisoner. They need not be detailed, but
apparently the most serious of them was the removal of a portion of the
black mud which masked the German's face, so as to leave a
diamond-shaped patch, of staring cleanness over one eye, after the
style of a music-hall star known to fame as the White-eyed Kaffir;
the ripping of a small portion of that garment which permitted of the
extraction of a dangling shirt into a ridiculous wagging tail about a
foot and a half long, and a pressing invitation, accompanied by a hint
from the bayonet point, to give an exposition of the goose-step at the
head of the other prisoners whenever they and their escort were passing
a sufficient number of troops to form a properly appreciative audience.
Probably a Cockney-born Highlander was responsible for these
pleasantries, as he certainly was for the explanation he gave to
curious inquirers.

"He's mad," he explained. "Mad as a coot; thinks he's the devil, and
insists on wagging his little tail. I have to keep him marching with
his hands up this way, because he might try to grab my rifle. Now, it's
no use you gritting your teeth and mumbling German swear words,
cherrybim. Keep your 'ands well up, and proceed with the goose-step."

But with all this Macalister had nothing to do. When he had returned as
nearly as he could the exact sufferings he had endured, he was quite
satisfied to let the matter drop. "I suppose," he said reflectively,
when the officer had gone, after giving him orders to see the prisoner
back, "as that finishes this play, we'll just need to treat ma lad here
like an ordinary preesoner. Has ony o' ye got a wee bit biscuit an'
bully beef an' a mouthful o' water t' gie the puir shiverin' crater!"



A BENEVOLENT NEUTRAL


" ... _the enemy temporarily gained a footing in a portion of our
trench, but in our counter-attack we retook this and a part of enemy
trench beyond_."--EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DESPATCH.


A wet night, a greasy road, and a side-slipping motor-bike provided the
means of an introduction between Second Lieutenant Courtenay of the 1st
Footsloggers and Sergeant Willard K. Rawbon of the Mechanical Transport
branch of the A.S.C. The Mechanical Transport as a rule extend a bland
contempt to motor-cycles running on the road, ignoring all their
frantic toots of entreaty for room to pass, and leaving them to scrape
as best they may along the narrow margin between a deep and muddy ditch
and the undeviating wheels of a Juggernaut Mechanical Transport lorry.
But a broken-down motor-cycle meets with a very different reception. It
invariably excites some feeling compounded apparently of compassion and
professional interest to the cycle, and an unlimited hospitality to the
stranded cyclist.

This being well known to Second Lieutenant Courtenay, he, after
collecting himself, his cycle, and his scattered wits from the ditch
and conscientiously cursing the road, the dark, and the wet, duly
turned to bless the luck that had brought about an accident right at
the doorstep of a section of the Motor Transport. There were about ten
massive lorries drawn up close to the side of the road under the
poplars, and Courtenay made a direct line for one from which a chink of
light showed under the tarpaulin and sounds of revelry issued from a
melodeon and a rasping file. Courtenay pulled aside the flap, poked his
head in and found himself blinking in the bright glare of an acetylene
lamp suspended in the middle of a Mechanical Transport traveling
workshop. The walls--tarpaulin over a wooden frame--were closely packed
with an array of tools, and the floor was still more closely packed
with a work-bench, vice and lathe, spare motor parts, boxes, and half a
dozen men. The men were reading newspapers and magazines; one was
manipulating the melodeon, and another at the vice was busy with the
file. The various occupations ceased abruptly as Courtenay poked his
head in and explained briefly who he was and what his troubles were.

"Thought you might be able to do something for me," he concluded, and
before he had finished speaking the man at the vice had laid down his
file and was reaching down a mackintosh from its hook. Courtenay
noticed a sergeant's stripes on his sleeve, and a thick and most
unsoldierly crop of hair on his head plastered back from the brow.

"Why sure," the sergeant said. "If she's anyways fixable, you reckon
her as fixed. Whereabouts is she ditched?"

Ten minutes later Courtenay was listening disconsolately to the list of
damages discovered by the glare of an electric torch and the sergeant's
searching examination.

"It'll take 'most a couple of hours to make any sort of a job," said
the sergeant. "That bust up fork alone--but we'll put her to rights for
you. Let's yank 'er over to the shop."

Courtenay was a good deal put out by this announcement.

"I suppose there's no help for it," he said resignedly, "but it's
dashed awkward. I'm due back at the billets now really, and another two
or three hours late--whew!"

"Carryin' a message, I s'pose," said the sergeant, as together they
seized the cycle and pushed it towards the repair lorry.

"No," said Courtenay, "I was over seeing another officer out this way."
He had an idea from the sergeant's free and easy style of address that
the mackintosh, without any visible badges and with a very visible
spattering of mud, had concealed the fact that he was an officer, and
when he reached the light he casually opened his coat to show his belts
and tunic. But the sergeant made not the slightest difference in his
manner.

"Guess you'd better pull that wet coat right off," he said casually,
"and set down while I get busy. You boys, pike out, hit it for the
downy, an' get any sleep you all can snatch. That break-down will be
ambling along in about three hours an' shoutin' for quick repairs, so
you'll have to hustle some. That three hours is about all the sleep
comin' to you to-night; so, beat it."

The damaged cycle was lifted into the lorry and propped up on its stand
and before the men had donned their mackintoshes and "beat it," the
sergeant was busy dismembering the damaged fork. Courtenay pulled off
his wet coat and settled himself comfortably on a box after offering
his assistance and being assured it was not required. The sergeant
conversed affably as he worked.

At first he addressed Courtenay as "mister," but suddenly--"Say," he
remarked, "what ought I to be calling you? I never can remember just
what those different stars-an'-stripes fixin's mean."

"My name is Courtenay and I'm second lieutenant," said the other. He
was a good deal surprised, for naturally, a man does not usually reach
the rank of sergeant without learning the meaning of the badges of rank
on an officer's sleeve.

"My name's Rawbon--Willard K. Rawbon," said the sergeant easily. "So
now we know where we are. Will you have a cigar, Loo-tenant?" he went
on, slipping a case from his pocket and extending it. Courtenay noticed
the solidly expensive get-up and the gold initials on the leather and
was still more puzzled. He reassured himself by another look at the
sergeant's stripes and the regulation soldier's khaki jacket. "No,
thanks," he said politely, and struggling with an inclination to laugh,
"I'll smoke a cigarette," and took one from his own case and lighted
it. He was a good deal interested and probed gently.

"You're Canadian, I suppose?" he said. "But this isn't Canadian
Transport, is it?"

"Not," said the sergeant "Neither it nor me. No Canuck in mine,
Loo-tenant. I'm good United States."

"I see," said Courtenay. "Just joined up to get a finger in the
fighting?"

"Yes an' no," said the sergeant, going on with his work in a manner
that showed plainly he was a thoroughly competent workman. "It was a
matter of business in the first place, a private business deal that--"

"I beg your pardon," said Courtenay hastily, reddening to his ear-tips.
"Please don't think I meant to question you. I say, are you sure I
can't help with that? It's too bad my sitting here watching you do all
the work."

The sergeant straightened himself slowly from the bench and looked at
Courtenay, a quizzical smile dawning on his thin lips. "Why now,
Loo-tenant," he said, "there's no need to get het up none. I know you
Britishers hate to be thought inquisitive--'bad form,' ain't it!--but I
didn't figure it thataway, not any. I'd forgot for a minute the
difference 'tween--" He broke off and looked down at his sleeve,
nodding to the stripes and then to the lieutenant's star. "An' if you
don't mind I'll keep on forgetting it meantime. 'Twon't hurt
discipline, seeing nobody's here anyway. Y' see," he went on, stooping
to his work again, "I'm not used to military manners an' customs. A
year ago if you'd told me I'd be a soldier, _and_ in the British Army,
I'd ha' thought you clean loco."

Courtenay laughed. "There's a good many in the same British Army can
say the same as you," he said.

"I was in London when the flare-up came, an' bein' interested in
business I didn't ball up my intellect with politics an' newspaper war
talk. So a cable I had from the firm hit me wallop, an' plumb dazed me.
It said, 'Try secure war contract. One hundred full-powered available
now. Two hundred delivery within month.' Then I began to sit up an'
take notice. Y' see, I'm in with a big firm of auto builders--mebbe you
know 'em--Rawbon an' Spedding, the Rawbon bein' my dad? No? Well,
anyhow, I got the contract, got it so quick it made my head swim. Gee,
that fellow in the War Office was buyin' up autos like I'd buy
pipe-lights. The hundred lorries was shipped over, an' I saw 'em safe
through the specified tests an' handed 'em over. Same with the next two
hundred, an' this"--tapping his toe on the floor--"is one of 'em right
here."

"I see how the lorry got here," said Courtenay, hugely interested, "but
I don't see how you've managed to be aboard. You and a suit of khaki
and a sergeant's stripes weren't all in the contract, I suppose?"

"Nope," said the sergeant, "not in the written one, mebbe. But I took a
fancy to seein' how the engines made out under war conditions, an'
figured I might get some useful notes on it for the firm, so I fixed it
to come right along."

"But how?" asked Courtenay--"if that's not a secret."

"Why, that guy in the testin' sheds was plump tickled when I told him
my notion. He fixed it all, and me suddenly discoverin' I was mistook
for a Canadian I just said 'M-m-m' when anybody asked me. I had to
enlist though, to put the deal through, an' after that there wasn't
trouble enough to clog the works of a lady's watch. But there was
trouble enough at the other end. My dad fair riz up an' screeched
cablegrams at me when I hinted at goin' to the Front. He made out it
was on the business side he was kickin', with the attitude of the
U-nited States toward the squabble thrown in as extra. Neutrals, he
said we was, benevolent neutrals, an' he wasn't goin' to have a son o'
his steppin' outside the ring-fence o' the U-nited States Constitution,
to say nothing of mebbe losin' good business we'd been do in' with the
Hoggheimers, an' Schmidt Brothers, an' Fritz Schneckluk, an' a heap
more buyers o' his that would rear up an' rip-snort an' refuse to do
another cent's worth of dealing with a firm that was sellin' 'em autos
wi' one hand an' shootin' holes in their brothers and cousins and
Kaisers wi' the other. I soothed the old man down by pointing out I was
to go working these lorries, and the British Army don't shoot Germans
with motor-lorries; and I'd be able to keep him posted in any weak
points, if, and as, and when they developed, so he could keep ahead o'
the crowd in improvements and hooking in more fat contracts; and
lastly, that the Schmidt customer crowd didn't need to know a thing
about me being here unless he was dub enough to tell 'em. So I signed
on to serve King George an' his missus an' kids for ever an' ever, or
duration of war, Amen, with a mental footnote, which last was the only
part I mentioned in mailing my dad, that I was a Benevolent Neutral.
An' here I am."

"Good egg," laughed Courtenay. "Hope you're liking the job."

"Waal, I'll amit I'm some disappointed, Loo-tenant," drawled the
sergeant. "Y' see I did expect I'd have a look in at some of the
fightin'. I'm no ragin' blood-drinker an' bone-buster by profession,
up-bringin', or liking. But it does seem sorter poor play that a man
should be plumb center of the biggest war in history an' never see a
single solitary corpse. An' that's me. I been trailin' around with this
convoy for months, and never got near enough to a shell burst to tell
it from a kid's firework. It ain't in the program of this trench
warfare to have motor transport under fire, and the program is bein'
strictly attended to. It's some sight too, they tell me, when a good
mix-up is goin' on up front. I've got a camera here that I bought
special, thinking it would be fun later to show round my album in the
States an' point out this man being skewered on a bayonet an' that one
being disrupted by a bomb an' the next lot charging a trench. But will
you believe me, Loo-tenant, I haven't as much as set eye or foot on the
trenches. I did once take a run up on the captain's 'Douglas,' thinking
I'd just have a walk around an' see the sights and get some snaps. But
I might as well have tried to break into Heaven an' steal the choir's
harps. I was turned back about ten ways I tried, and wound up by being
arrested as a spy an' darn near gettin' shot. I got mad at last and I
told some fellows, stuck all over with red tabs and cap-bands and
armlets, that they could keep their old trenches, and I didn't believe
they were worth looking at anyway."

Courtenay was laughing again. "I fancy I see the faces of the staff,"
he choked.

"Oh, they ante-d up all right later on," admitted the sergeant, "when
they'd discovered this column and roped in my captain to identify me.
One old leather-face, 'specially--they told me after he was a
General--was as nice as pie, an' had me in an' fed me a fresh meat and
canned asparagus lunch and near chuckled himself into a choking fit
when I told him about dad, an' my being booked up as a Benevolent
Neutral. He was so mighty pleasant that I told him I'd like to have my
dad make him a present of as dandy an auto as rolls in France. I would
have, too, but he simply wouldn't listen to me; told me he'd send it
back freight if I did; and I had to believe him, though, it seemed
unnatural. But they wouldn't let me go look at their blame trenches. I
tried to get this General joker to pass me in, but he wouldn't fall for
it. 'No, no,' he gurgles and splutters. 'A Benevolent Neutral in the
trenches! Never do, never do. We'll have to put some new initials on
the Mechanical Transport,' he says, 'B.N.M.T. Benevolent Neutral! I
must tell Dallas of the Transport that.' And he shooed me off with
that."

The sergeant had worked busily as he talked, and now, as he commenced
to replace the repaired fork, he was thoughtfully silent a moment.

"I suppose there's some dandy sna-aps up in those trenches,
Loo-tenant?" he said at last.

"Oh, well, I dunno," said Courtenay. "Sort of thing you see in the
picture papers, of course."

"Them!" said the sergeant contemptuously. "I could make better sna-aps
posin' some of the transport crowd in these emergency trenches dug
twenty miles back from the front. I mean real pictures of the real
thing--fellows knee-deep in mud, and a shell lobbing in, and such
like--real dandy snaps. It makes my mouth water to think of 'em. But I
suppose I'll go through this darn war and never see enough to let me
hold up my head when I get back home and they ask me what was the war
really like and to tell 'em about the trenches. I could have made out
if I'd even seen those blame trenches and got some good snaps of 'em."

Courtenay was moved to a rash compassion and a still more rash promise.

"Look here, sergeant," he said, "I'm dashed if I don't have a try to
get you a look at the trenches. We go in again in two days and it might
be managed."

*       *       *       *       *

Three days later Sergeant Rawbon, mounted on the motor-cycle which he
had repaired and which had been sent over to him, found all his
obstacles to the trenches melt and vanish before a couple of passes
with which he was provided--one readily granted by his captain on
hearing the reason for its request, and one signed by Second Lieutenant
Courtenay to pass the bearer, Sergeant Rawbon, on his way to the
headquarters of the 1st Footsloggers with motor-cycle belonging to that
battalion. The last quarter mile of the run to the headquarters
introduced Sergeant Rawbon to the sensation of being under fire, and,
as he afterwards informed Courtenay, he did not find the sensation in
any way pleasant.

"Loo-tenant," he said gravely, "I've had some of this under fire
performance already, and I tell you I finds it no ways nice. Coming
along that last bit of road I heard something whistling every now an'
then like the top note of a tin whistle, and something else goin'
_whisk_ like a cane switched past your ear, and another lot saying
_smack_ like a whip-lash snapping. I was riding slow and careful,
because that road ain't exactly--well, it would take a lot of
sandpapering to make it really smooth. But when I realized that those
sounds spelt bullets with a capital B, I decided that road wasn't as
bad as I'd thought, and that anything up to thirty knots wasn't outside
its limits."

"Oh, you were all right," said Courtenay carelessly, "bullets can't
touch you there, except a few long-distance ones that fall in enfilade
over the village. From the front they go over your head, or hit that
parapet along the side of the road."

"Which is comforting, so far," said the sergeant, "though, personally,
I've just about as much objection to be hit by a bullet that comes over
a village as any other kind."

They were outside the remains of a house in the cellar of which was
headquarters, Courtenay having timed the sergeant to arrive at an hour
when he, Courtenay, could arrange to be waiting at headquarters.

"Now we'll shove along down and round the trenches. I spoke to the O.C.
and explained the situation--partly. He didn't raise any trouble so
just follow me, and leave me to do any talking there is to do. You must
keep your eyes open and ask any questions about things after. It would
look a bit odd and raise remarks if the men saw me showing you round
and doing the Cook's Tour guide business. And if you've brought that
camera, keep it out of sight till I give you the word. When we get
along to my own company's bit of trench I'll tell you, and you can take
some snaps--when I'm not looking at you. Just tip the wink to any men
about and they'll be quite pleased to pose or anything you like."

"Loo-tenant," said Sergeant Rawbon earnestly, "you're doin' this thing
real handsome, and I won't forget it. If ever you hit the U-nited
States----"

"Oh, that's all right," said Courtenay, "come along now."

"When we find your bunch," said Rawbon as they moved off, "if you could
make some sort of excuse out loud, and fade from the scene a minute and
leave me there with the men, I'll sure get some of the dandiest snaps
I'd wish. I reckon it'll satisfy the crowd if I promise to send 'em
copies. It will if they're anything like my lot in the Mechanical
Transport."

They slid down into a deep and narrow and very muddy ditch that ran
twistingly through the wrecked village. Courtenay explained that
usually they could walk this part above ground, sheltered from bullets
by the broken-down houses and walls, but that a good few shells had
been coming over all day, and that in the communication trench they
were safe from all shells but those which burst directly over or in the
part they were in.

"You want to run across this bit," he said presently. "A high explosive
broke that in this morning, and it can't be repaired properly till
dark. You go first and wait the other side for me. Now--jump lively!"

Rawbon took one quick jumping stride to the middle of the gap, and
another and very much quicker one beyond it, as a bullet smacked
venomously into the broken side of the trench. Another threw a spurt of
mud at Courtenay's heels as he made the rush. "A sniper watches the gap
and pots at anyone passing," he explained to Rawbon. "It's fairly safe,
because at the range he's firing a bullet takes just a shade longer to
reach here than you take to run across. But it doesn't do to walk."

"No," said Rawbon, "and going back somehow I don't think I will walk. I
can see without any more explainin' that it's no spot for a pleasant,
easy little saunter." He stopped suddenly as a succession of whooping
rushes passed overhead. "Gee! What's that?"

"Shells from our own guns," said Courtenay, and took the lead again. In
his turn he stopped and crouched, calling to Rawbon to keek down. They
heard a long screaming whistle rising to a tempestuous roar and
breaking off in a crash which made the ground shake. Next moment a
shower of mud and earth and stones fell rattling and thumping about and
into the trench.

"Coal-box," said Courtenay hurriedly. "Come on. They're apt to drop
some more about the same spot."

"I'm with you," said Rawbon. "The same spot is a good one to quit, I
reckon."

They hurried, slipping and floundering, along the wet trench, and
turned at last into another zig-zag one where a step ran along one
side, and men muffled in wet coats stood behind a loopholed parapet.
Along the trench was a series of tiny shelters scooped out of the bank,
built up with sand-bags, covered ineffectually with wet, shiny,
waterproof ground-sheets. In these, men were crouched over scantily
filled braziers, or huddled, curled up like homeless dogs on a
doorstep. At intervals along the parapet men watched through periscopes
hoisted over the top edge, and every now and then one fired through a
loophole. The trench bottom where they walked was anything from ankle- to
knee-deep in evil-looking watery mud of the consistency of very thin
porridge. The whole scene, the picture of wet misery, the dirt and
squalor and discomfort made Rawbon shiver as much from disgust as from
the raw cold that clung about the oozing clay walls and began to bite
through to his soaking feet and legs. Courtenay stopped near a group of
men, and telling the sergeant to wait there a moment, moved on and left
him. A puff of cold wet wind blew over the parapet, and the sergeant
wrinkled his nose disgustedly. "Some odorous," he commented to a
mud-caked private hunkered down on his heels on the fire-step with his
back against the trench wall. "Does, the Boche run a glue factory or a
fertilizer works around here?"

"The last about fits it," said the private grimly. "They made an attack
here about a week back, and there's a tidy few fertilizin' out there
now--to say nothin' of some of ours we can't get in."

Rawbon squirmed uneasily to think he should, however unwittingly, have
jested about their dead, but nobody there seemed in any way shocked or
resentful. The sergeant suddenly remembered his camera, and had thrust
his hand under his coat to his pocket when the warning screech of an
approaching shell and the example of the other men in the traverse sent
him crouching low in the trench bottom. The trench there was almost
knee-deep in thin mud, but everyone apparently took that as a matter of
course. The shell burst well behind them, but it was followed
immediately by about a dozen rounds from a light gun. They came
uncomfortably close, crashing overhead and just in front of the
parapet. A splinter from one lifted a man's cap from his head and sent
it flying. The splinter's whirr and the man's sharp exclamation brought
all eyes in his direction. His look of comical surprise and the
half-dazed fashion of his lifting a hand to fumble cautiously at his
head raised some laughter and a good deal of chaff.

"Orright," he said angrily. "Orright, go on; laugh, dash yer. Fat lot
t' laugh at, seein' a man's good cap pitched in the mud."

"No use you feelin' that 'ead o' yours," said his neighbor, grinning.
"You can't even raise a sick 'eadache out o' that squeak. 'Arf an inch
lower now an' you might 'ave 'ad a nice little trip 'ome in an
'orspital ship."

"You're wrong there, Jack," said another solemnly. "That splinter hit
fair on top of his nut, an' glanced off. You don't think a pifflin'
little Pip-Squeak shell could go through _his_ head?" He stepped up on
the firing-step as he spoke, and on the instant, with a rush and crash,
another "Pip-Squeak" struck the parapet immediately in front of him,
blowing the top edge off it, filling the air with a volcano of mud,
dirt, smoke, and shrieking splinters, and, either from the shock of the
explosion or in an attempt to escape it, throwing the man off his
balance on the ledge of the firing-step to sprawl full length in the
mud. In the swirl of noise and smoke and flying earth Rawbon just
glimpsed the plunging fall of a man's body, and felt a curious sickly
feeling at the pit of his stomach. He was relieved beyond words to see
the figure rise to his knees and stagger to his feet, dripping mud and
filth, and swearing at the pitch of his voice. He paid no attention to
the stutter of laughter round him as he retrieved his mud-encrusted
rifle, and looked about him for his cap. The laughter rose as he groped
in the thin mud for it, still cursing wildly; and then the sergeant
noticed that the man who had lost his cap a minute before had quietly
snatched up the other one from the firing-step, clapped it on his own
head and pretended to help the loser to search.

"It was blame funny, I suppose," Rawbon told the lieutenant a few
minutes after, as they moved from the spot. "Him chasin' round in the
mud cussin' all blue about his 'blarsted cap'; and t'other fellow wi'
the cap on his head and pretending to hunt for it, and callin' the rest
to come help. I dessay I'll laugh some myself, if I remember it when
I'm safe back about ten mile from here. Just at the moment my funny
bone hasn't got goin' right after me expectin' to see that feller
blowed to ribbons an' remnants. But them others--say, I've seen men
sittin' comfortable in an armchair seat at a roof-garden vaudeville
that couldn't raise as hearty a laugh at the prize antics of the
thousand dollar star comedian, as them fellers riz on that cap
episode."

"Well, it was rather funny, you know," said Courtenay, grinning a
little himself.

"Mebbe, mebbe," said Rawbon. "But me--well, if you'll excuse it, I'll
keep that laugh in pickle till I feel more like usin' it."

"You wanted to come, you know," said Courtenay. "But I won't blame you
if you say you've had enough and head for home. As I told you before,
this 'joy-riding' game is rather silly. It's bad enough us taking risks
we have to, but----"

"Yes, you spoke that piece, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon, "but I want to
see all there is on show now I'm here. Only don't expect me to shriek
with hilarious mirth every time a shell busts six inches off my nose."

They had halted for a moment, and now another crackling string of light
shells burst along the trench.

"There's another bunch o' humor arriving," said Rawbon. "But I don't
feel yet like encoring the turn any;"

They moved on to a steady accompaniment of shell bursts and Courtenay
looked round uneasily.

"I don't half like this," he said. "They don't usually shell us so at
this time of day. Hope there's no attack coming."

"I agree with all you say, Loo-tenant, and then some. Especially about
not liking it."

"I'm beginning to think you'd be better off these premises," said
Courtenay. "I ought to be with my company if any trouble is coming off.
And it might lead to questions and unpleasantness if you were found
here--especially if you're a casualty, or I am."

"Nuff sed, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon promptly. "I don't want that sort
o' trouble for various reasons. I'd have an everlastin' job explaining
to my dad what I was doin' in the front seats o' the firing line. It
wouldn't just fit wi' my bein' a Benevolent Neutral, not anyhow."

"We're only about thirty or forty yards from the Germ trench in this
bit," said Courtenay. "Here, carry my periscope, and when I'm talking
to some of the men just take a look quietly."

But Rawbon was not able to see much when, a little later, he had a
chance to use the periscope. For one thing the short winter day was
fading and the light was already poor; for another any attempt to keep
the periscope above the parapet for more than a few seconds brought a
series of bullets hissing and zipping over, and periscope glasses in
those days were too precious to risk for mere curiosity's sake.

"We'll just have a look at the Frying Pan," said Courtenay, "and then
you'll have seen about the lot. We hold a bit of the trench running out
beyond the Pan and the Germs are holding the same trench a little
further along. We've both got the trench plugged up with sandbag
barricades."

They floundered along the twisting trench till it turned sharply to the
right and ran out into the shallow hollow of the Frying Pan. It was
swimming in greasy mud, and across the far side from where they stood
Rawbon could see a breastwork of sandbags.

"We call this entrance trench the Handle, and the trench that runs out
from behind that barricade the Leak. There's always more or less
bombing going on in the Leak, and I don't know if it's very wise of you
to go up there. We call this the Frying Pan because--well, 'into the
fire,' you know. Will you chance it?"

"Why, sure; if you don't mind, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon, "I might as
well see--" He was interrupted by a sudden crash and roar, running
bursts of flaring light, hoarse yells and shouts, and a few rifle shots
from somewhere beyond the barricade across the Leak. The work of the
next minute was too fast and furious for Rawbon to follow or
understand. The uproar beyond the barricade swelled and clamored, and
the earth shook to the roar of bursting bombs. In the Frying Pan there
was a sudden vision of confused figures, dimly seen through the
swirling smoke, swaying and struggling, threshing and splashing in the
liquid mud. He was just conscious of Courtenay shouting something about
"Get back," of his being thrust violently back into the wide trench, of
two or three figures crowding in after him, cursing and staggering and
shooting back into the Frying Pan, of Courtenay's voice shouting again
to "Stand clear," of a knot of men scrambling and heaving at something,
and then of a deafening "Rat-tat-tat-tat," and the streaming flashes of
a machine-gun. It stopped firing after a minute, and Rawbon, flattened
back against a corner of the trench wall, heard an explanation given by
a gasping private to Courtenay and another mud-bedaubed officer who
appeared mysteriously from somewhere.

"Flung a shower o' bombs an' rushed us, sir," said the private. "They
was over a-top o' us 'fore you could say 'knife.' Only two or three o'
us that wasn't downed and was able to get back out o' the Leak an'
across the Pan to here."

"We stopped them with the maxim," said Courtenay, "but I suppose
they'll rush again in a minute."

He and the other officer conferred hastily. Rawbon caught a few words
about "counterattack" and "quicker the better" and "all the men I can
find," and then the other officer moved hurriedly down the trench and
men came jostling and crowding to the end of the Handle, just clear of
the corner where it turned into the Pan. A few sandbags were pulled
down off the parapet and heaped across the end of the trench, the
machine-gun was run close up to them and a couple of men posted, one to
watch with a periscope, and the other to keep Verey pistol lights
flaring into the Frying Pan.

Two minutes later the other officer returned, spoke hastily to
Courtenay, and then calling to the men to follow, jumped the low
barricade and ran splashing out into the open hollow with the men
streaming after him. A burst of rifle fire and the shattering crash of
bombs met them, and continued fiercely for a few minutes after the last
of the counter-attacking party had swarmed out. But the attack broke
down, never reached the barricade beyond the Pan, was, in fact, cut
down almost as fast as it emerged into the open. A handful of men came
limping and floundering back, and Courtenay, waiting by the machine-gun
in case of another German rush, caught sight of the face of the last
man in.