One after another the men gave vent to their own particular personal opinions, and so it became apparent that the general consensus of thought was that the party should halt where it was and rest till dawn came. After that—well, their fortunes lay in the lap of the gods. It was hardly likely that they would escape from such a predicament without trouble or danger, but, if it came, they would be better able to face it after having rested.
Trust the British soldier and his American chum to make the most of any sort of surroundings and to gain comfort in spite of bleak conditions. Half an hour later the whole party—with the exception of one man who watched at the exit of the factory—lay fast asleep, snoring, in their greatcoats under the blankets, which each of them had carried. The sentry stood on a piled-up heap of shattered masonry which had once supported the upper floor of the factory, looking through one of the exits. We have said one of the exits, though that hardly gives a good idea of the condition of the place, seeing that British guns and German guns had each in turn hammered this property, with the result that walls had been flattened and holed. The upper story had gone entirely, windows were no more, and but a battered wreck remained, with hardly a semblance of a factory about it, gaping to the skies with wide rents in all directions. Its interior was a mass of fallen stones, save where lay relics of previous British occupation.
Morning found the party, refreshed by their sleep, fit once more and ready for anything. The mist, too, was not sufficiently thick to prevent their inspecting their immediate surroundings, and Bill, as leader of the party, at once proceeded to make himself familiar with them.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Some hundreds of sand-bags here. Some of 'em rotten and going to pieces, but others quite sound. They formed, of course, the protection to the aid post. And here's the 'elephant' shelters still standing. Better still! they'll keep the rain out. Now for a squint all round, and then for the cellar. Seems to me we might hold out here for some time."
Months before, parties of natives and others employed by the British had swept over the Somme battle-field, throughout its vast extent, and had salvaged a great amount of material for future use: guns here and there, munitions elsewhere, telephone wires, every sort of warlike material had been gathered in to one collecting centre, even timbers had been extracted from the deep dug-outs constructed by the Germans. But sand-bags and this heavy iron sheeting forming the "elephant" shelter were not worth removing, and were therefore left to rot like the remainder of their surroundings. To Bill and his friends they promised a certain amount of security.
"You see," said Bill, "we could set to work now, select the bags that are in good order, and form a strong post here, out of which no sort of machine-gun fire could drive us—they'd have to bring guns along, or bombs, to do us in—eh, Larry? What about it, Nobby? Suppose the Germans did track us to this spot, are you going to surrender without putting up a fight?"
Nobby looked distinctly annoyed. He glared at Bill, and looked more enormous and more formidable in his hairy coat in that morning mist than he had done previously. He smote himself violently on the chest and tilted his tin hat forward.
"Me give in to Fritz without a fight?" he asked. "'Ere, young chap, what d'yer take me for?—a blinkin' blighter?"
Bill didn't. He mollified the great Nobby by placing one hand on his stalwart shoulder, and then turned to Larry. It was characteristic of the latter that he merely smiled.