“Yes, sir!”

“Well, go down there, and see if you can see the flashes from there; and if you can, mark it down. See?”

“Yes, sir!” and he had his equipment on in no time, and was starting off when I called him back.

“Be very careful to mark your own position,” I warned him. “You know what I mean.”

He knew, and I knew that he knew.

Meanwhile, I stuck an empty cartridge case in the parados behind my head and waited.

Five flashes spat out again, and “pop—pop—pop—pop—pop” came up out of the valley: and between me and them in the parapet I stuck a second cartridge case——

I looked at my watch. It was half-past twelve. The post was finished, and the trench deep enough to get along, crawling anyway.

“Cease work.”