"First stop, British trench, Tiddler!" sang out the irrepressible Hawke, as they blundered along the side of a crater. "We'd given you up as a bad job, sir. Lord! You ought to see A Company. Don't believe there's more than thirty of us left." And a strain of gloomy seriousness vibrated in the speaker's voice.
"Yes, I know," said Captain Bob savagely, adding sharply, "Bear away to the left here."
"Beg pardon, sir, but that's our trench yonder," expostulated his bearers.
"Quite so," said Bob Dashwood. "But do you hear that?"
Under the perpetual thunder of the guns a sudden low roar came out of the darkness at right angles to the trench for which they had been making—the eager clamouring of hoarse voices, and many of them.
"That's the Australian Division on its way to storm that infernal brewery, and we must stop them at any cost."
"Lumme! They'll want a bit of stopping," muttered Tiddler through his nose. "They're more likely to stop us. Them Anzac blokes don't let much grass grow in front of their bayonets."
"Dennis," sang out the Captain, "get on ahead and see what you can do with them; and you, lads, put me down and go forward with my brother. I'm only an incubus."
"No, sir," replied Harry Hawke firmly. "You ain't no nincompoop. It's only an orficer's voice those chaps will listen to. We'll carry you right enough."
The trench from which the Australian Division was advancing branched off northward, and as Dennis sprinted forward to meet them he could make out the first rush tearing across the broken ground, yelling like fiends.