Earth had come dribbling from the top of the parapet, and following the earth panting men scrambling down the sandbags until they reached the ground. One trod upon his shoulder as he lay there, but the lad never moved, and whispered words all about him told that the enemy was mustering for the assault.
At the end of a few minutes the soft squelch of heavy boots died away in the direction of the British line, and Dennis Dashwood swallowed rapidly and felt sick. He could not see his hand in front of him, and the rain continued to hiss without cessation, falling into a neighbouring shell hole with an ever-increasing plop.
Had they seen his signal and understood it? was his agonised thought, as eight powerful searchlights were suddenly turned on to the ground in front.
Everything was now as light as day, and he saw the Prussian battalions lying on their faces, packed like sardines in a tin, behind those sandbags that concealed them from his own people.
The iron plates on their boot soles gleamed like silver, and not a man of them moved. Then, without warning, a hurricane of German shells plumped into the trench where he had left his beloved battalion, raking it from end to end.
No need for those waiting bayonets now, was his soul-rending thought, as he saw the trench disappear in a holocaust of flame and smoke. He had acted for the best, but he ought to have gone back with his news, for, if the battalion was where he had left it, then the 2/12th Royal Reedshires must have been wiped off the face of the earth!