"Yes," said Dennis grimly, "I know; we make the great attack at half-past seven, and the Germans know it too. Look at this!"
Captain Bob and the C.O. read von Drissel's words by the light of a star-shell, and the trio exchanged glances.
"Well, it can't be helped," said the C.O. "And I don't think the information will do the enemy much good. Do you notice how dull the sound of our guns is? It strikes one as odd."
It had not occurred to them before, but they realised it now as they stood there in the trench bay, and others remarked the fact and wrote of it afterwards. A hurricane of shells of every calibre, from the whiz-bang of the field-guns to the enormous projectile of "Mother," passed continuously overhead in the darkness, to burst in the enemy trenches, and yet the sound was less loud than many a purely local bombardment had been.
It was a trying wait, and the dawn came with provoking slowness, a grey mist veiling the ground until the sun gained power and the sky showed pale-blue flecked with fleecy clouds. Men blew on their fingers, for the morning was cold.
"It ain't 'arf parky," growled Harry Hawke.
"It'll be 'ot enough in a bit," said his pal, Tiddler. "What price Old Street, 'Arry?"
"Chuck it!" replied the marksman of No. 2 Platoon. "No good thinking of love and sentiment now." But for all that, perhaps, a fleeting vision of his Lil passed through his untutored brain, and made him a shade paler about the gills.
Tiddler noticed it and smiled to himself, knowing what it meant, for when Hawke looked white it was time for his enemy to look out, and the moment was rapidly approaching.
The trench was packed with men, all waiting. Those of the reserves who were not yet in their places were pouring steadily up, and immediately behind the front line Staff cars and motor cycles dashed backwards and forwards; and overhead, where, oddly enough, the larks were trilling, an English aeroplane was flying just above the scream of the shells.