And then the angry Captain suddenly thrust out his hand.
"Sorry, old man," he said. "You were right, and I take it all back."
There was no malice in the hearty squeeze with which Dennis met the proffered fingers as they all flung themselves on their faces.
Von Dussel, half blinded by a British shell which dropped close beside him as he knelt, knew that to stay any longer was to court death. Something had happened to delay the expected division, but he had a little matter of private revenge which must not be neglected.
"Now, you Dashwoods, you! You have interfered with me too long," he muttered with a vindictive glitter in his grey eyes. "Up you go!" And he fired the fuse!
There was a dull boom. A strange shiver seemed to pass over all that shell-torn ground, and with an extraordinary roar the earth lifted skyward, thousands of tons of it rising in a weird black mass flecked with tongues of crimson flame. Higher and higher it mounted, preceded by dense black smoke that afterwards hung for an hour or more above the battlefield. Woods and trenches, men lying out dead in the open—the whole landscape was reddened by the glare, and as it faded out the debris from the explosion rained over a wide radius in a deadly shower.
Chimney, buildings, barbed wire, everything had disappeared, and where the brewery had stood the moment before a huge crater now yawned.
"You admit there was something in it, after all," said Dennis, unable to repress a ring of exultation in his voice.
"Gee-whiz! I'll admit anything you like," replied his new acquaintance. "There would have been some heavy hearts in Queensland if you hadn't come along to-night. But, say, there goes the order for us to occupy that hole. See you later on, I hope, Dashwood."