"What do you mean?"
"One of those filthy Boche tricks. They'd nailed him up against the lining of the trench with bayonets. He was still alive when we found him. But they'll get it all back. We're going to give 'em hell to-night."
May Margaret was silent for so long that Major Hilton peered at her more closely. Her white face looked like a bruised thing in the darkness.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Perhaps I shouldn't have told you. They have done so much of that kind of thing, I suppose we've got used to it. Well, you've been tramping about all day, and if I were you, as you're going to spend the night here, I should settle down for a bit in the dugout. The bombardment seems to be easing off a little, and you'll want to be awake all night. There'll be some sights coming on of the picturesque kind—fireworks and things, which is what you want, I suppose, for the blessed old public."
Far away, in another section of the trenches, there was a burst of cheering. Major Hilton pricked up his ears to listen; but it was drowned immediately in another blast outside that sealed the mouth of the dugout like a blow from a gigantic hammer and plunged them into complete darkness thick with dust and sand.
"Are you all right?" said Hilton, in a moment or two. "They've blown the parapet over us. Our chaps will soon get us out."
They sat down and waited. The sound of their rescuers' shovels was followed almost immediately by the pulling away of a sandbag, and the dusty daylight filtered in again, bringing with it another roar of cheering, nearer now, and rolling along the trenches like an Atlantic breaker.
"What the hell are they shouting about?" Hilton grunted, as he scrambled through the opening. May Margaret was about to follow him, when the abrupt answer struck her motionless.
"America has declared war, sir."
"Are you sure?"