The straps held, to their great joy, and the pair below watched the thing dangling in mid-air above their heads as Dennis hauled it slowly upwards.
The men of C Company also watched the manœuvre with keen interest; and Hawke, with a couple of charged magazines in his hand, climbed up and clung within arm's reach of his officer.
The Germans were flinging a terrific barrage fire upon the village in our rear, and our own barrage was pulverising the ground beyond the enemy ridge, almost drowning the sound of the two machine-guns which were checking the British advance at that spot.
Dennis could see the gunner behind his sandbags, sweeping the front of the wood, and, laying the gun, he pressed the trigger.
The detachable magazine of a Lewis holds forty-seven cartridges in two layers; and, loosing a couple of trial shots, both of which drew a spurt of earth from the sandbags, he kept his pull on the trigger, and emptied the rest in a continuous stream.
He saw the gunner drop, and several heads peer anxiously round as another man took his place. They were trying to locate the whereabouts of this unseen enemy, but they fell back out of sight before they could place it, and a third and a fourth gunner likewise.
The machine-gun was silenced before Dennis passed his hand down to the delighted Hawke.
"Now's your time!" he yelled to the waiting line beneath, as he fixed the deadly disc in position. And as he heard the whistles shrilling, he almost lost his balance in the wild excitement that seized him.
"Charge, boys, charge!" was the cry, as the Reedshires sprang over the tree-trunks and rushed up the slope, and a row of forage caps popped up above the parapet.
They made a splendid mark for the lad; and it was a very broken volley that met the khaki rush as Dennis played his weapon along the Bavarian trench.