'You vait,' bellowed a guttural voice. 'Us vind you op—quick!'
'Vind op—squeak, an' squeakin',' retorted Private Robinson.
The German reply was drowned in a burst of new song which ran like wild-fire the length of the German trench. A note of fierce passion rang in the voices, and the Towers sat listening in silence.
'Dunno wot it is,' said one. 'But it sounds like they was sayin' something nasty, an' meanin' it all.'
But one word, shouted fiercely and lustily, caught Private Robinson's ear.
''Ark!' he said in eager anticipation. 'I do believe it's—s-sh! There!' triumphantly, as again the word rang out—the one word at the end of the verse . . . 'England.'
'It's it. It's the "'Ymn of 'Ate"!'
The word flew down the British trench—'It's the 'Ymn! They're singin' the "'Ymn of 'Ate,"' and every man sat drinking the air in eagerly. This was luck, pure gorgeous luck. Hadn't the Towers, like many another regiment, heard about the famous 'Hymn of Hate,' and read it in the papers, and had it declaimed with a fine frenzy by Private 'Enery Irving? Hadn't they, like plenty other regiments, longed to hear the tune, but longed in vain, never having found one who knew it? And here it was being sung to them in full chorus by the Germans themselves. Oh, this was luck.
The mouth-organist was sitting with his mouth open and his head turned to listen, as if afraid to miss a single note.
''Ave you got it, Snapper?' whispered Private Robinson anxiously at the end. 'Will you be able to remember it?'