"Aye, a sucrerie. I remember it," came from Nobby. "Here you are, here's one of the tanks in which they boiled their roots. It's Pozières—for a hundred! Pozières! don't I know it? Here's where the Australians did in the Germans what was holding 'em up, and pushed on towards Courcelette."
Bill recollected the place at once. Not once but a hundred times probably had he been up or down this Albert-Bapaume road, and, like everyone who had traversed it, he remembered well that little graveyard on the left with the crosses to the gallant Australians, and on the right, here and there, lost almost amongst the tumbled earth and smashed country-side, solitary little crosses, and farther along on the left again, as he went to Bapaume or Peronne, that shattered factory with the old sugar-tanks, smashed and crumbled and perforated by shrapnel and machine-gun bullets, lying three hundred yards from the road, sole relic of the once flourishing and pretty village of Pozières, now relic only of a spot which was the scene of some of the bitterest fighting in 1916.
"In you go," said Bill. "These ruins will hide us, and we can sit down and have a feed. Nobby, you know the place you say—tell us all about it, so that we may know what we're in for. Any good hiding-places?"
"Know the place?" grinned Nobby, as they entered the shattered walls of the factory and sat themselves down on the floor, which was still littered with much of the broken material left by the British. "Well now, when I was here—seems months and months ago—there was a medical post stationed 'ere, covered up in sand-bags. And, my word, didn't they want 'em! Shrapnel was comin' over all the time, and you've only got to see those tanks outside to realize how machine-gun bullets were buzzing. Yet it was a comfortable enough crib then, though rough, and gave fair shelter."
"Fair shelter?" said Bill, suddenly pricking up his ears and thinking. "Supposing now we were forced to protect ourselves, it would——"
The gallant Nobby realized his meaning promptly. "It would," he said with emphasis. "These 'ere old walls, what you can see of 'em in the mist and the darkness, are thick—that is, what's left of 'em is—and there used to be a cellar underneath the floor. If Fritz becomes inquisitive and tries to round us up, why, believe me, this 'ere place might do us a treat. Better'n being in the dug-out anyway. 'Sides, as I remember it, it just tops a rise, and the ground slopes gently away from it all round. That'ud be nasty for the Boche, eh?"
"It'ud provide us with a hiding-place perhaps," said Bill thoughtfully, as they all sat down and munched a ration. "Looks to me, Larry, as though we'd better have another council of war, we fellows, right forward there. We might with a bit of luck get right through the lines during the night. On the other hand, we mightn't. We'd stand a better chance if we could hide up in a place like this, which, as Nobby says, ain't a dug-out, but gives us shelter. We could then get an observation post and look round the neighbourhood. Of course the place might be searched; but then we always stand a chance of being discovered, even if we move on, eh? What's your idea? What do you say about it?"
"Yep," said Larry, pursing his lips. "Gee! this here's a conundrum! I'd like to treat it as our folks say in 'judgematical' manner. Supposin' we move on—well, soon we've got to get off the road, for we've come somewhere near the line where troops are moving. You may say that the Germans have pushed right ahead, past the Butte of Warlencourt and beyond Pozières. They've made a tidy advance in the few hours that have passed since their offensive opened, and now they're held up, or nearly held up, let's hope, somewheres just in front of us. But where is that somewheres? It may be just a mile ahead; it mayn't, on the other hand. Supposin' we moves on, then we may barge into a whole crowd and get bayoneted for our trouble; we may get shot down by our own guns; or we may even find ourselves mixed up in a German offensive and get done in by German machine-gun bullets, perhaps American machine-gun bullets—for some of our boys will get rushed up to help the Allied line. No, siree, I vote that we sits down here for the night, and, come morning, hides away. Then we'll look up some place from which we can observe, and will try to get an idea of what's happening."
"And Jim?" asked Bill, for Jim was one of those quiet Americans who never spoke unless he had something worth saying, but whose opinion was valuable.
"I'm in with Larry," he said. "There's uncertainty either way, whether we go forward or remain here. We may get hunted out to-morrow, or caged in this place like rats in a trap. If so, we can put up a fight at least, same as I guess many other pockets of soldiers overrun by the Germans will be doing. Better that than push on and shove our noses into a noose."