Dennis looked back for a moment as he came to the shattered trees, which lay about in all directions in the most extraordinary confusion, and saw that the C.O. and the rest of the battalion had already cleared the stream, and were coming up in support.
"Keep on, old chap!" cried a voice, as Bob ran up. "Are you all right so far?"
"Yes, I'm all right; but, by Jove, you look a pretty beauty!"
The once smart captain, who somehow or other even in the wet trenches had generally managed to appear spotless, like the officers of the French army, who always looked as though they had been turned out of a band-box, now presented a most disreputable appearance.
His helmet was gone, his Bedford cords were torn in seven or eight places, and his left sleeve hung in ribbons. Up to his waist-belt he was soaked by his passage through the stream. Above that his tunic was covered with blood; on the whole, not a man you would have cared to sit next to in a railway carriage or anywhere else.
But he only smiled as Dennis pointed to him. "Yes, I know," he said; "but what's the odds? We've done a big thing, and the rest of the battalion's done a big thing, and we've got to keep the beggars on the go before they dig themselves in. Come on, dear old Den.; you'll hardly believe it, but I haven't got a scratch of my own. All this gore belongs to the enemy, and I don't think we've lost more than a couple of dozen of A Company."
They ran side by side, and soon came up with a khaki mob of their own men and the Highlanders streaming along each side of the German communication trench, up which the Bavarians were still flying. Every now and then they fired into it or threw bombs, but the older hands knew that the walk-over would not last for ever, and kept their eyes skinned.
Suddenly, where the shattered trees thinned out and the still rising ground showed an irregular ridge against the skyline, a sound which they all knew only too well fell upon their ears.
There were two machine-gun emplacements on the ridge, and a murderous fire was opened upon the victorious pursuers.
Bob Dashwood blew the order to take cover, and, as there was plenty of it, A Company promptly flopped down behind the fallen trunks which our bombardment had uprooted in every direction.