"A hundred an' one, a hundred an' two, a hundred an' three!" (He was timing the fuse of his bomb, exactly as I'd told 'em.)
And then we tore a big hole in the night. Our six bombs landed, one on the edge and the other five plumb in the sap-head before us, right in the middle of the six or eight Boches digging there. Two seconds after they left our hands they did their job. It was less than two seconds really. And when the rending row was done we heard only one Boche moaning, so I knew that at least six or seven were "gone West" for keeps, and would strafe no more Englishmen.
Now the idea had been that directly our job was done we should bolt for the head of Stinking Sap. But, while we'd been lying there, it had occurred to me that the Boches, knowing all about what distance bombs could be thrown, and that we must be lying in the open near their sap-head, ought to be able to sweep that ground with machine-gun fire before we could get to Stinking Sap, and that, having done that, they would surely send a whole lot more men down their new sap, to tackle what was left of us that way. Therefore I'd made each of my fellows carry four bombs in his pockets: twenty-four among the lot of us. And we'd only used six. Quite enough, too, for the Boches in that sap. Therefore, again, we now lay absolutely still, and just as close as wax, while Fritz rained parachute lights, stars, flares, and every kind of firework in the sky, and, just as I had fancied, swept his sap-head with at least a thousand rounds of machine-gun bullets, not one of which so much as grazed us, where we lay spread-eagled in the mud of that shell-hole.
And then—dead silence.
"Get your bombs ready, lads," I told my fellows. In another few seconds we heard the Boches streaming along their narrow new sap. They took it for granted we had cleared back to our line, and they made no attempt to disguise their coming. In fact, from the rate at which they rushed along that narrow ditch I could almost swear that some came without rifles or anything. We waited till the near end of the sap was full, and then: "A hundred and one," etc. We gave 'em our second volley, and immediately on top of it our third. It must have been a regular shambles. Slade and I, by previous arrangement, lobbed ours over as far as ever we could to the left, landing quite near the beginning of the sap, and so getting the Boches who were only just leaving their own fire trench. Then I laid my hand on the draper to prevent his throwing, and Slade and the other three gave their last volley, and bolted full pelt for Stinking Sap.
There was no bucking at all in the part of the sap near us. The Boches there wouldn't trouble anyone any more, I fancy. But a few seconds after Slade disappeared, we heard a fresh lot start on their way down the sap from their fire trench. We gave 'em up to about "A hundred and three" and a half, and then we let 'em have our last two bombs, well to the left, and ourselves made tracks like greased lightning for Stinking Sap. The luck held perfectly, and Slade was hauling the draper in over the parapet of Stinking Sap before a sound came from the Boches' machine-guns. And then, by Gad! they opened on us. They holed my oilskin coat for me, as I slid in after Ramsay, and spoiled it. I've jotted it down against 'em and in due course they shall pay. But not one of my crowd got a scratch, and we reckon to have accounted for at the very least twenty Boches, maybe double that—a most splendid lark.
What makes "B" Company rather mad is that, strictly speaking, this new Boche sap is a shade nearer their line than ours. The C.O. came up to look at it this morning, on the strength of our O.C.'s morning situation report, and was most awfully nice to me about it. He said we did well to wait for the Boches' coming down from their line after our first scoop, and that plans must be made to fit circumstances, and not held to be ends in themselves, and all that kind of thing—initiative, you know, and so on—very nice indeed he was. And the best of it is our artillery has registered on that sap this morning, and this afternoon is just about going to blow it across the Rhine. So altogether "A" Company is feeling pretty good, if you please, and has its tail well up. So has your
"Temporary Gentleman."