'Can't you keep on belting 'em for a bit?' asked the Platoon officer.
'Might make 'em ease up on us.'
The gunner shook his head regretfully.
'I'd ask nothing better,' he said. 'I could just give those trenches beans. But our orders are strict, and we daren't waste a round on anything but an attack. I'll bet that's my Major wanting to know if he can't slack off a bit more,' he continued, as the signaller called something about 'Wanted to speak here, sir.'
He went to the instrument and held a short conversation. 'Told you so,' he said, when he returned to the infantry officer. 'No attack—no shells. We're stopping again.'
'Doesn't seem to be too much stop about the Germs,' grumbled the infantryman, as another series of crackling shells shook the ground close behind them. He moved down the line speaking a few words here and there to the crouching men of his platoon.
'This is getting serious,' he said when he came back to his place. 'There's more than the half of my lot hit, and the most of them pretty badly. These shrapnel bullets and shell splinters make a shocking mess of a wound, y'know.'
'Yes,' said the gunner grimly, 'I know.'
'A perfectly brutal mess,' the subaltern repeated. 'A bullet now is more or less decent, but those shells of theirs, they don't give a man a chance to pull through.'
'Ours are as bad, if that's any satisfaction to you,' said the gunner.
'I s'pose so,' agreed the subaltern. 'Ghastly sort of game altogether, isn't it? Those poor fellows of mine now—the killed, I mean. Think of their fathers and mothers and wives or sweethearts——'