"Food, boys!" he called out, "and maybe it's the last we'll get down in this dug-out. With all that fire comin' over, it ain't possible that we shall advance, and from what I've sorter gathered we'll be lucky if we can hold our ground. There's millions of Germans. The Kaiser's been bringin' 'em over from Russia all the time, and I expects that 'e's been bringin' all the guns and ammunition that the Russians left to 'im. 'Ere you are, Bill, hold yer plate! Good bully and stew with a potato or two a-floatin' around. You won't turn yer nose up at it, I know, nor Larry neither. I don't know America, but I guess there couldn't be anything better put before you out there—eh, Larry?"
"Yep! You bet! Feedin' ain't no better and no worse out there, and it'll never be better than it is here," the American answered, sniffing at the stew and smacking his lips.
Indeed he spoke the truth, for never were soldiers better fed than those belonging to Britain. They ate their stew with relish, those men down in that deep well of the earth, and then fell to smoking and to chatting, while Bill clambered along flights of steep wooden steps till he came to the gas curtain which hung across the exit, and, keeping his gas respirator at the "alert" position, ready to pop the mask over his face at any instant, he pushed the curtain aside, and, helmet on head, emerged into the open. It was light—that is to say, it was lighter than it had been three hours earlier, though a damp, wet fog clung to the ground. Gun-fire still sounded, but for some uncanny reason its fierceness had subsided; though now, in place of the heavy thuds of distant batteries and the bursting of shells, there was to be heard the sharp, crisper report of smaller explosive missiles.
"Trench mortars, shouldn't wonder," he thought, "and that's rifle-fire, machine-gun firing, and it's spreading all along the line! It's—— by James! it's behind us! It's close here to our left! It's—— who are they?"
He peered through the mist, and then, lifting the curtain, dived down the steps of the dug-out, reaching his friends eventually in a confused heap, for he had missed his footing on the damp stairway.
"Why, it's our little Bill," chaffed Larry, and then looked serious, for Bill sat up, his clothes awry, his helmet dangling in one hand, his eyes starting.
"They're Huns—Huns I tell you! They're all round us! They've got behind us! Our men have fallen back. It's been a surprise attack, and the mist and the fog have helped them. It's—it looks as though we're cornered."
"Cornered! Cornered! Looks as though we're cornered," they repeated, the words coming to Bill's ears as if from a far distance, first with a decided flavour of the American accent, then in broad Devonshire, and again from Jim in that drawl which was so unmistakable. "Cornered!"
"Yep!"